There’s no windmill on top of Lawrence’s 75th Street Brewery, but the restaurant is investing heavily in wind energy.

The restaurant recently became the first in the state to agree to purchase enough wind power to run the operations of its Lawrence business for the next five years.

And the unique deal has renewable energy advocates optimistic that wind energy may make its way into the everyday lives of Americans.

The Kansas City, Mo.-based chain of restaurants and breweries purchased what are known as “green tags” from a Lenexa-based business, owned by a trio of Kansas University graduates. The green tag concept basically allows businesses and homeowners to pay extra money each month for their electricity needs. The extra money doesn’t necessarily guarantee that renewable energy is shipped through an electric line into the buyer’s home or business. Rather the extra dollars are guaranteed to be used to fund renewable energy projects across the country.

In the case of 75th Street Brewery, the green tags it purchased from Lenexa-based Pristine Power will fund new wind energy turbines in Maui, Hawaii, and undisclosed locations in western Kansas and Missouri.

Although the deal is adding from $5,000 to $7,000 a year to the restaurant’s electricity costs, 75th Street officials said it would be worth it if it spurred new wind energy development and discussion.

“We think it is an issue that we all need to think more about,” said Jennifer Tucker, general manager at the Lawrence restaurant. “It’s our natural resources that we’re talking about. We can’t just take them for granted. We hope this will show people that we want to do our part.”

The concept of green tags is catching on in environmentally conscious areas of the country. In Austin, Texas, the Green Mountain Energy Co. has used the concept to serve 600,000 customers in seven states since it was founded in 1997. The concept also has been well received in parts of Colorado and California.

In the Kansas City area, the idea is the brainchild of Troy Helming, a veteran wind energy executive and a 1990 graduate of KU’s School of Business.

Alternative energy businessmen, from left, Tom Gray, CEO of Pristine Power; Troy Helming, CEO of Krystal Planet; and Bill Gray, president of Pristine Power, helped the 75th Street Brewery buy a five-year supply of green

He launched Lenexa-based Krystal Planet in April 2003 and began selling green tags to homeowners across the country for $30 per month. The $30 green tag provides buyers the assurance that 1,000 megawatts of wind energy electricity will be produced each month. One thousand megawatts is roughly the amount of electricity the average home uses in a month.

Helming said his company had 2,000 customers across the country, 500 of them in Kansas, who are buying the monthly green tags. He said people liked the idea that they’re meeting their electricity needs through green power, rather than “dirty power” produced by coal or natural gas-fueled electric plants. Even though the wind turbines that their money funds may not be in their area, Helming said customers took to the idea because they realized for every 1,000 megawatts of power produced with green power, 1,000 megawatts of power didn’t need to be produced through traditional power plants.

“It is a hot topic,” Helming said. “It is real popular today to help reduce our dependence on foreign fuel and fossil fuel. For a lot of people it is a patriotic and a health issue. They’re basically just saying this makes sense. It is the right thing to do.”

Growth plans

Helming — along with partners and fellow KU graduates Tom Gray and Bill Gray — formed Pristine Power in January to focus on selling green tags to businesses, churches and other nonresidential users. It is an affiliate of Krystal Energy Corp., which is also the parent company of Krystal Planet.

The trio has big plans for the companies. Helming said the businesses were experiencing monthly customer growth rates of more than 100 percent. Even if the growth tapers off to a more realistic 20 percent, Helming said the companies would have 1 million customers by early 2006. With that customer base, Helming said the company would have revenues of $1 billion a year and would provide the company with enough funding to add enough new wind turbines every year to power 300,000 homes.

It is a lofty goal, but one that company executives insist is realistic. Tom Gray said wind energy was poised to make a big splash on the national scene, noting that the New York Jets proposed stadium project will be 100 percent powered by wind and solar energy and that the new World Trade Center Freedom Tower will include wind turbines.

“I’m telling you, this is ready to explode,” Tom Gray said. “It is really spreading already. People are talking to their friends and neighbors about it.”

Other industry observers say Helming’s company, and others like it, are worth watching.

“I don’t know that I’m ready to say that they’re going to play a major role, but they have a potential to play a significant role in the renewable energy movement,” said Jim Ploger, energy manager at the Kansas Corporation Commission.

Ploger said the National Wind Coordinating Committee recently began studying the issue of green tags and the companies that sell them. He said one of the concerns was that there were no national set of standards for the companies.

“There probably does need to be something to make sure everything is being done above board,” Ploger said.

Ploger said he had received no complaints about Helming’s companies. Helming said he provided customers a legally binding, written guarantee that the money would be used for wind energy projects. He also has a third-party accounting firm conduct an annual audit of the company’s funds and makes that report available to customers. The company also discloses that only about 33 percent of the $30 monthly fees goes toward the construction of new projects. The remaining money goes to marketing, salary and administrative expenses.

Despite questions, Ploger said the concept still had merit because it allowed residents to easily become involved in the wind energy movement.

“The potential is definitely there because I think there already is a segment of the population — maybe 8 to 10 percent — who are willing to pay a premium for renewable energy.”

Construction planned

Helming previously owned Kansas Wind Energy, a company that was working to develop large-scale wind farms around the Wichita area. He also made an unsuccessful proposal to Johnson County commissioners to use part of the Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant for a small-scale wind farm and wind energy research center.

Helming sold Kansas Wind Energy in January. He said he realized it was more feasible to focus on smaller wind energy projects and seek funding from individuals rather than banks.

“They way I did it before is I begged for a 20-year contract from a power company and then begged a bank for a loan,” Helming said.

Helming said this process was better because it created more consumer demand, and consequently visibility, for wind power as part of the process.

Helming said the company’s plan called for the business to build a new $1.6 million wind turbine for every 2,000 to 5,000 customers.

Pre-construction work has begun on a turbine in Maui, Hawaii, an area with notoriously high electric costs, good wind and a new state requirement that 20 percent of all the state’s energy be from renewable sources by the year 2015. The turbine should be producing energy by early 2005, Helming said.

Once the company has operating wind turbines, its growth will accelerate. That’s because a federal law — the Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act — essentially guarantees that the wind turbines will be allowed to connect to the national power grid and that the nearest public utility must buy the power it produces at the average rate paid for wholesale power.

Currently that rate is between 1 cent to 3 cents per kilowatt hour. The average wind turbine will produce about 800,000 kilowatt hours per month, or enough electricity to power about 800 homes.

Helming said the company expected to have 160 turbines in production by 2005, including on sites in western Kansas.

“Once we get this first one built, it is going to put us into the stratosphere in terms of revenues and credibility,” Helming said.