Winter begins with 100 towers up, more work expected in spring

Wind power was greatly increased in Winnebago and Hancock counties in 2008 with FPL Energy, out of Florida, erecting 180 wind turbines near Crystal Lake and Forest City.

Phase 1 of the wind project, Crystal Lake's 100 General Electric wind turbines producing 150 megawatts of energy was energized and started producing electricity Oct. 18.

Phase 2, 80 Clipper turbines capable of producing 200 megawatts of power and located southwest of Forest City, was completed before Christmas with all turbines being commissioned and energized.

A power outage early in December caused the Phase 1 turbines to go down, however Lance Ginn, of FPL Energy said workers had them back up and running within a few days. "Due to the cold temperatures, the turbines that are energized will heat up first before start-up. Everything is great on Phase 1," he said.

Shortly after the majority of the Clipper turbines were erected it was discovered the blades had a manufacturer's defect. "Phase 2 has some minor repairs to the blades which is underway, but it will not affect energization," Ginn said. "Michael Bogie is our FPL representative that is managing the blade repairs for the Clipper turbines."

Work began in earnest on Phase 1 in December 2007 and the first of the 263-feet tall wind turbines were erected this past May.

Reclamation work, or putting the land back to its natural state, was completed on Phase 1 in October according to Ginn. The Hancock County Engineer's office worked with FPL Energy workers in grading the swells and, "creating positive drainage to make sure we don't alter farmers' land to where it would create a problem in the future," Ginn said.

The 37 miles of transmission line, stretching from the Crystal Lake Substation to the Lime Creek Substation north of Mason City, was interconnected into the grid owned and operated by Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO).

MISO is responsible for dispatching and balancing generating and transmission resources to serve customer demand throughout the Midwest and upper Midwest region of the nation.

Phase 2 has its own substation and is connected to the Phase 1 substation through five miles of transmission line. "The Clipper target date is to have all online by the end of December," Ginn said.

The Operations and Maintenance building (O & M), where the turbines are controlled and monitored, was also fully operational in October, and both phases of the Crystal Lake Wind project, Crystal Lake 1 and Crystal Lake 2, are staffed by their own set of wind techs.

Ginn explained that all the turbines are linked through a SCADA network, or fiber optic cables, that run from the base of each turbine to the O & M building so the technicians can see what's going on inside each turbine.

"We can monitor all 180 turbines and remotely monitor the power input. If the system operations should trip we'll know it," said Eric Johnson, plant leader for Crystal Lake 1.

"We'll have a wind tech always on call. They are here during business hours and they will call Florida when they turn over operations to them at night," Johnson explained. "Scada will link to our main distribution point in Florida. They (FPL Energy) can remotely monitor every turbine the company owns."

Crystal Lake 1, the General Electric turbines, has one site manager, six wind techs for central maintenance and three wind tech itinerates that will travel to other sites in the region to do man-hour intensive work such as switch out yaw motors Johnson said.

Crystal Lake 2, the Clippers, have their own crew of six wind techs and four wind tech itinerates.

Each team includes a high voltage technician to handle substation and power transmission and a plant technician that handles parts procurral and budgets.

Johnson, a retired Navy man, was thrilled to get a job with FPL Energy and become site manager for Crystal Lake 1, since his wife was from Iowa and this is where they wanted to settle.

"I was impressed with their attention to safety when I hired on," Johnson said. "Second to the military this group is top of the safety game."

He said all their technicians and turbine site workers are properly trained before they are allowed to touch or do anything. "We are our brother's keeper - we are a family. We know everyone here and we want them going home the same way they came to work," he said.

All the technicians are locally hired, with one driving in from Osage and one from Algona. For people who are wondering how they can get a job with FPL Johnson advised, "Go learn! FPL has contracted with area colleges such as NIACC, to offer courses. NIACC has basic hydraulic course aimed toward wind turbines."

"It is a work in progress," he said. "We make sure everyone we hire is trained to the same level."

While talk has circulated about Phases 3 and 4, Lance Ginn said there was nothing at this time to confirm. "We have a developer in there and are working on securing land, but we don't know when this is expected to be built. There are power purchase agreements, T-line agreements, land owner lease agreements, interconnect agreements. There is a lot of stuff to do."