February

Biomass power for Mid-Kansas Electric

Mid-Kansas Electric Co. (MKEC) has agreed to purchase 75 megawatts of power from a planned bioenergy center to be constructed near Hugoton in southwest Kansas. Mid-Kansas is owned by the six electric cooperatives that also own Hays-based Sunflower Electric.

Electricity will come from a facility that ultimately will produce about 15 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol each year as well as 115 megawatts of electricity, 75 of which will be purchased by MKEC.

Material to produce the ethanol will come from renewable resources-primarily corn stover, wheat straw, milo stubble and switchgrass. Most of the material used will be corn stalks. It's thought that biomass from about 300,000 acres of land will be needed to supply the plant's biomass needs.

The ethanol-electricity center will be constructed by Abengoa Bioenergy, a subsidiary of Spain-based Abengoa S.A.

"If they break ground by the end of this year, which they hope to do, we'll get it by 2012," Clare Gustin said of when MKEC would receive power from the Hugoton center. Gustin is vice president for member services and external affairs at Sunflower.

The plant is expected to take 24 months to construct and cost $550 million. A $76 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy will help pay for the project.

The plant will use 2,500 tons of biomass daily to produce ethanol and electricity, requiring 10 percent to 12 percent of available biomass within a 50-mile radius of the plant.

Gustin said the power is being purchased by MKEC rather than Sunflower because that's where the power is needed.

When the six cooperatives formed MKEC to purchase the electric system that had been operated by Aquila, it also purchased a power contract from Jeffrey Energy Center near St. Marys.

That power contract expires in 2018, which would leave MKEC short of base-load contract power. MKEC also is expected to purchase power from a yet-to-be-constructed power plant at Sunflower's Holcomb facility.

Virtually all of the lines to transfer the power from the Hugoton facility to transmission lines already are in place.

"That's one thing that makes this a sweet deal," Gustin said of obtaining the power from Abengoa.

The lines came into play when the city of Hugoton, which had long produced its own electricity, decided it needed to hook into the national grid.

http://www.hdnews.net/Story/MKEC012010