By Sara StrongDenver and Mound Townships are hosting test towers for a California wind energy company.Rock County granted the company, SeaWest, conditional use permits for the meteorological towers. Steve Steinhauer of SeaWest said, "We’re trying to determine if it’s a commercially feasible resource at that location. It will be about a year before that’s determined." The four towers are actually 6-inch diameter tubes reaching 164 feet. They are fitted with wind detecting equipment, which sends the indications to a computer to tabulate wind energy potential.SeaWest has wind power projects all across the country, mostly west of the Mississippi. Steinhauer said he was interested in what the area has already done in wind power, in Rock County and further north in the region, near Lake Benton, for example.The company is based out of San Diego and manages wind energy projects of various sizes, from 300 to 3,000 turbines.Customers who use SeaWest can be project owners, power purchasers, or manufacturers.
