Reno County Wind Energy Taskforce

Reno County property owners controlling over 80-thousand acres have registered with the taskforce as interested in being contacted by wind developers. These names are available to developers meeting our criteria for responsible wind development. Contact us for details!

Latest News: 

Reno Wind Group hosts Landowner Meeting August 31st

On Monday, August 31^st from 7:00 to 9:00 PM the Reno County Wind Energy Taskforce (RCWET) hosted a landowner meeting at the Nickerson High School Auditorium for those in Hayes, Enterprise, Walnut, Salt Creek, Huntsville, and Medford Townships.  

The following web sites and documents were referenced during the presentation and are provided here for review:

Wind Lease Considerations:

http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/agecon/market/ec1394.htm

http://www.windustry.org/sites/windustry.org/files/LandEMain.pdf

Landowner Wind Energy Associations:

http://www.windustry.org/sites/windustry.org/files/Introduction_%20to_LWEA.pdf

Mark Richardson's PowerPoint presentation (offered here as a .pdf):

Nickerson Meeting.pdf

One role of the RCWET is to provide a link between the landowners and developers to assist each in reaching a favorable outcome. Landowner knowledge is important in order to obtain reasonable leases and equitable compensation for the wind asset.  The RCWET is considered one of the leading organizations in the state in providing grass roots support to both landowners and developers.

Topics covered:

• Recent wind energy developments including Siemens coming to Hutchinson

• Community wind opportunities--local ownership and participation in development process

• Landowner wind lease considerations

• Landowners forming landowner wind energy associations to market their interest

 Thanks to everyone for attending!

Siemens building North America Nacelle Plant in Reno County!

Siemens AG, a world leader in wind turbine production, has selected Reno County as the site of a 300,000 square foot wind turbine production facility. The company hopes to ship its first turbine by the end of 2010. The factory will produce Siemens' highly respected 2.3MW turbines, shown right, with annual production of 650 nacelles by the end of 2011.  

Siemens has also selected Reno County as the site for an 80,000 square foot nacelle service facility. This facility was not necessarily to be co-located in the company's original plans, but Kevin Hazel, Siemens Vice President of Supply Chain Management, explained that "intangibles" like community cooperation available at the central Kansas site made it an obvious choice for additional investments by the company. 

Reno County was already home to Sunflower Wind, an ambitious startup company manufacturing residential to industrial sized turbines with an innovative leasing program.

Contact Us for information on how your company can benefit from the same attributes that led Siemens to make Reno County a focal point for the wind industry.

• We've commissioned wind studies indicating many prime development sites with wind speeds suitable for utility-scale wind generation.

• Local units of government are favorably disposed to both wind energy developers and manufacturers of wind generation products! 

• A gas-fired peaking plant and underground salt caverns for possible compressed air storage make Reno County an absolutely unique site for utility-scale wind development.