District 300 Turns to Wind Farms to Cut Energy Costs

Tough economic times call for creative measures.

Most Illinois school districts are grappling with decisions on how to save money in the midst of a state budget crisis. 

For District 300, the answer, one could say, is blowing in the wind.

School officials are embracing an innovative plan to save nearly $2.4 million on the district’s annual ComEd bill through the use of wind turbines.

Community Unit School District 300 officials are moving forward with a joint venture with Keeneyville Elementary District 20 and Prospect Heights School District 23 to build a wind-turbine farm that, in time, will offset the almost $3 million in annual electricity expenditures for the district’s 22 buildings.

“There’s not another project like this in the nation,” said Dave Ulm, supervisor of facilities and energy management for Community Unit School District 300.

While a handful of schools in Illinois and the nation have erected one wind turbine from which to pull power, none, to Ulm’s knowledge, have spearheaded efforts to build an entire wind-turbine farm.

Originally, District 300 officials sought to simply put up one turbine on the Hampshire High School property, but their request was denied, said Chief Financial Officer Cheryl Crates.

And that’s where the creativity came in.

Ulm, Crates and other District 300 officials have spent the past three years working with representatives from School Districts 20 and 23 to create an independent organization, the School Wind Consortium Agency (SWCA), to oversee the construction of a 13-turbine wind farm in Stark County Illinois, northwest of Peoria. Stark County was selected because the county already has an ordinance allowing wind farms.

The $50 million project would be governed by the SWCA and through its own board of directors and run separately from the school districts, Ulm said. District 300 would hold 80 percent interest, and Districts 20 and 23 each would hold 10 percent.

The 400-foot-tall turbines would produce a total of 19.5 megawatts of power, Ulm said. Since the turbines are so far away from District 300, the power produced would not be used directly by the schools.

Rather, the power would be sold to other clients. The school districts would receive the sales revenues and re-apply the earnings to their electrical bills.

The SWCA hopes to obtain federal stimulus funds to pay for part of the project. Also, a private investor will cover more than half of the initial cost, while receiving all tax credits on the project for approximately the first seven years, Ulm said.

The SWCA will be issuing revenue bonds to pay for the remainder of the costs.

Ulm said the wind turbines must be spread apart, and the SWCA would lease land from about a dozen farm owners in Stark County to make the initiative happen.

When the construction bonds are paid off on the project in seven to eight years, District 300 will receive about $2.4 million per year in revenue, Ulm said.

“This project, after operations and expenses, will have roughly a $3 million revenue stream each and every year,” Ulm said. "District 300 gets 80 percent of it. We are going to effectively cut 80 percent of our electrical costs (for the district). The profits will be immediately applied to our electrical line item (of the district budget).”

District 300 spent $2.9 million on electricity last year for the 22 schools and administrative buildings, said Crates, who has also worked on creating the SWCA.

“We’re hoping to build by this summer, and this time next year we’ll be generating power,” Crates said.

The district’s investment in the project so far has been about $59,078 in legal expenses. The District 300 School Board at a meeting last month approved the expenditure. There will be minimal additional expenses in the future, Ulm said.

Collaborating to build the wind farm required the help of many people, and even necessitated new state legislation, Ulm said. He credited Gary Ofisher, director of operations for District 20; Hanover Park Mayor Rodney Craig; and Illinois State Rep. Fred Crespo, D-Hoffman Estates, for supporting the project.

“A lot of people put a lot of work into this,” Ulm said. “We had to get laws passed for this.”

Rep. Crespo introduced House Bill 6419, the School District Intergovernmental Cooperation Renewable Energy Act. It was signed into law in June 2010 by Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn.

The law grants school districts the authority to join together to build a cooperative wind farm and sell the excess power to utility companies for profit.