Topeka ? Measures aimed at boosting renewable energy sources are probably dead for the 2002 legislative session.

Charles Benjamin, an attorney with the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club, said he was disappointed the bills weren’t successful but confident that lawmakers would see the light.

“Things don’t always happen the first time around, but renewable energy is the wave of the future,” said Benjamin, a Lawrence resident.

Two bills before the House Utilities Committee were aimed at increasing the use of renewable energy, especially wind power. Neither made it out of committee by a key legislative deadline that marks the halfway point of the session.

One measure would have allowed landowners, particularly in rural areas, to band together in small energy cooperatives to put up electric-generating wind turbines and sell electricity to other utilities. This failed in committee, 9-11.

The other bill would have allowed “net metering,” in which customers with a wind turbine have a meter that can gauge when they are producing power and when they are consuming power from the utility company. The net electricity then is tallied at the end of the billing cycle.

After seeing the vote on the renewable energy cooperative bill, Utilities Chairman Carl Holmes, R-Liberal, withdrew the net-metering bill.

Environmentalists and farmers supported both measures as a way to diversify energy sources, produce cleaner energy and give farmers another way of earning an income.

Donna Johnson, president of Pinnacle Technology Inc. of Lawrence, testified in favor of the bills. Pinnacle is a product development company that has worked with the state in promoting wind energy.

“It should be a goal of the state to encourage those who want to generate their own renewable electricity,” Johnson said.

“We can diversify our energy mix and improve our environment while supporting citizens’ and communities’ right to chose their energy type,” she said.

Recently, a wind farm was developed in Gray County. It features 170 towers spread over 8,000 acres and produces a total of 110 megawatts enough power to provide the electricity needs of a city the size of Lawrence.

Landowners involved in the operation have lease agreements worth about $2,000 per year for each turbine, according to state officials.

The wind farm was built by FPL Energy, a subsidiary of Florida Power and Light, and the power is sold to UtiliCorp United Inc.

But Kansas utility companies either opposed the measures or were lukewarm.

Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, and vice chairman of the Utilities Committee, sponsored the energy cooperative legislation. He said he would try to find a way to attach the bill to another measure on the House floor. Failing that, Sloan said he would re-introduce it next year.

Utility companies also opposed the net-metering bill because they said it provided an unfair subsidy to a customer-generator that would have to be paid by other customers.

Staff writer Scott Rothschild can be reached at (785) 354-4222.