As the blades of the 86 turbines on the Forward Wind Energy Center remain still, rumors have been circulating faster than the wind as to why the wind farm has been offline since Sept. 29. Invenergy LLC officials attributed the shutdown to scheduled maintenance of the wind farm's substation. However, the latest buzz that a major utility pulled out of its power purchase contract and has left Invenergy without a new customer to fill the void simply isn't true.

BROWNSVILLE - As the blades of the 86 turbines on the Forward Wind Energy Center remain still, rumors have been circulating faster than the wind as to why the wind farm has been offline since Sept. 29.

Invenergy LLC officials attributed the shutdown to scheduled maintenance of the wind farm's substation. However, the latest buzz that a major utility pulled out of its power purchase contract and has left Invenergy without a new customer to fill the void simply isn't true, said Laura Miner, asset manager for Invenergy.

"There was a delay in getting parts for the transformer at the plant, and now we have completed testing of the equipment and will begin bringing the unit back online," Miner said. "This is a very time-consuming process as we have to manually prepare the unit. We expect the plant to be back online sometime early next week."

Calls to the Forward Wind Center's four major power purchasers confirmed that all contracts negotiated with the Chicago-based firm remain in place. Invenergy currently has contracts with Madison Gas & Electric, 40 megawatts; Wisconsin Public Power Inc., 40 megawatts; Wisconsin Public Service, 70 megawatts; and Alliant Energy, 50 megawatts.

"We're currently purchasing about 27½ megawatts from the Forward Wind Center," said Alliant Energy spokesman Scott Reigstead. "Nothing has changed regarding our agreement."

Rob Benninghoff, director of renewable and special projects for Wisconsin Public Service, said the company was aware of the planned outage.

"I don't know how rumors like this get started, but we have no plans to back out of our contract," Benninghoff said. "Right now, we're pulling nearly 58 megawatts off the wind farm onto our power grid."

Steve Kraus of Madison Gas & Electric said 12,000 of their utility customers have designated green energy for their needs, which includes wind power.

Miner said the 20-year contracts with the utilities include substantial penalties for breaking the agreement. Rumors that the utilities would back out of the contract due to the higher cost of wind energy compared to gas, coal and nuclear energy are also unfounded.

"All the contracts were negotiated up front with fixed long-term costs throughout the life of the agreement. There won't be this up and down fluctuation of prices which other forms of energy are liable to do since they're based on fuel input," Miner said. "They will essentially have the same rates over the next 20 years except for minor adjustments for inflation."

The electricity produced by the turbines is an essential addition to the energy portfolios of each company.

In 2004, Gov. Jim Doyle asked Wisconsin Utilities to generate 10 percent of their power supply from renewable sources by 2015.

The purchase of power from the Brownsville area wind farm is expected to boost Madison G&E's power input from renewable sources to 5 percent, while WPPI will get about 3 percent of its total energy from renewable energy.

The contract with Forward Wind Center pushed Alliant Energy's total wind energy portfolio to an estimated 450 megawatts. According to a press release issued by the Madison-based utility, its renewable portfolio is approaching 10 percent of its total capacity.

Kraus said Alliant Energy has long surpassed the state's 10 percent portfolio goal for renewable energy sources.

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