Kansas Co-op Celebrates Grand Opening of New Facility

In late October, Wheatland Electric Cooperative, Inc. held an open house to celebrate the grand opening of its new facility in Great Bend, Kansas. Financed by CFC, the project centralizes the distribution cooperative’s operations in its central district and features an outdoor green park designed to demonstrate renewable energy technologies to interested members and area schools.

“We are extremely excited about the opportunities our new facility affords us,” Wheatland Electric General Manager and CEO Bruce W. Mueller said. The cooperative serves more than 21,000 members in southwest and central Kansas and eastern Colorado.

“Our new building and warehouse will help increase efficiency by centralizing operations in our Great Bend territory, which we acquired from investor-owned utility Aquila back in 2007,” Mueller said. “Since then, we’ve made significant improvements and investments in Great Bend over the past decade and a half.”

The new 30,000-square-foot building features both a walk-in customer service lobby and drive-up window to assist members. The facility will also house a mobile substation, designed for emergency and severe weather outages caused by tornadoes, ice events and other natural disasters.

The green park includes a 30-kWh wind turbine, a 12-volt solar panel, a battery storage system and a 3,000-gallon rainwater collection tank and well system. Together, the elements are expected to generate enough power to serve all the lighting for the park and water the grass. There is also a Level 2 dual-point electric vehicle charging station installed in the member parking lot.

“We hope this new space invites our members and visitors to learn more about the future of renewable resources,” Mueller added.

The project was 100 percent financed by CFC, and the financing process was very easy, Mueller shared. “Wheatland very much appreciates our relationship with CFC. We chose CFC as our primary finance source over a decade ago and it’s now in our bylaws.”