Struggling to keep energy expenses under control, and desperate for new sources of revenue, more and more Illinois school districts are turning their attention to wind power. The latest example comes from a consortium of districts from Chicago's northern suburbs that are proposing to build their own wind farm in Central Illinois. The Peoria Journal-Star has the details:

Northern Stark County is being eyed as the potential site of a unique not-for-profit wind energy project being developed by a consortium of Chicago-area school districts.

County Board Chairman Mike Bigger has been contacted by a group interested in developing a project that could eventually include up to 65 turbines in the Elmira area northeast of Toulon, he said at a board meeting Tuesday night.

"They're talking about possibly putting up between six and 13 towers in (each of) five phases," he said. "They would be 2.5 megawatt turbines."

None of the districts involved -- Carpentersville School District 300, Keeneyville Elementary School District 20, and Prospect Heights School District 23 -- would use the electricity generated from the turbines directly. Rather, they'd set up the farm as a non-profit company that would, in turn, sell the power to utility companies. The proceeds would then be used to offset their own energy use. When Carpentersville's District 300 agreed to put up the bulk of the money to get the project going back in August, the Courier News took note and put the investment in perspective. The first phase, the paper reported, would net roughly $3 million a year, enough to cover District 300's annual $2.9 million energy tab. Another 10 percent of the proceeds would be paid out to the smaller districts involved.

While Bigger is correct to note that this arrangement is "unique to the nation," school officials across Illinois have lately been experimenting with wind power as a source of revenue.  This effort hasn't been without its challenges. Last year, utility companies managed to kill a bill (SB 6600) that would have removed a cost barrier threatening to hold up emerging projects like the consortium's. The Daily Herald explained in a lengthy feature last month:

But the districts have struggled to find a financial model that will work because current law requires utilities to buy the consortium's power at only a fraction of the typical retail cost for electricity [...]

Despite the support of more than 60 Illinois school districts, the bill that would have fixed the compensation issue didn't even make it out of committee.

The bill met strong resistance from the electric utilities, which argued they wouldn't be fairly compensated for the cost of transmitting the districts' electricity.

That compensation formula is set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and SB 660 would have set up a system that was in violation of federal law, the Illinois Wind Energy Association's (IWEA) Kevin Borgia tells us.

Encouragingly, school officials aren't giving up. In just the past three years, more than two dozen districts and colleges have snagged grants from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation to explore the use of wind power. It's a smart investment, both for the environment and to cushion districts -- particularly in depressed rural areas -- from budget cuts.