WIND STORAGE?

Wind energy/storage plant slated for Dallas County
David Elbert, January 5, 2007 (Des Moines Register)
- Iowa’s municipal utilities announced plans Friday to build a $200 million power plant west of Dallas Center that will store wind energy in the ground and use it to generate up to 268 mega-watts of electricity.

- The announcement culminates more than four years of study and research…Construction of the Iowa Stored Energy Park would begin in 2009 with completion of the plant expected in 2011…
- Financing would be similar to methods used to build other utility power plants…pre-sell contracts to municipal utilities and others…sell bonds
- The site is roughly 40 acres…3,000 feet below the farmland is a porous rock structure that extends out for about a mile or more and has the capacity to hold compressed air pumped into the ground. That capacity is the key to the storage facility…electricity will be generated by wind energy farms at remote sites and will be carried by transmission lines to giant compressors…The compressors will pump the air into the ground, where it will be stored under pressure in the porous rock. The pressure is created by displacing air that is already in the rock. Air is contained within the rock by a surrounding solid rock cap.

- The air can be converted back into electricity by releasing the pressure, allowing the air to drive turbines that create electricity.
- The project would employ 300-400 workers during construction and create about 20-40 permanent jobs. The permanent jobs would be skilled jobs with good pay…
- Only two similar wind storage plants are currently in existence. One is in Germany and the other in Alabama. Both are about half the size of the plant planned for Dallas County…