By Lori EhdeLocal wind energy leaders cleared a monumental hurdle this fall with an agreement with Xcel Energy.Minwind I and Minwind II members have signed a 20-year agreement with Xcel and its parent company Northern States Power, to transmit power generated from Rock County wind turbines.With the agreement in place, seven new wind turbines will be built 2 1/2 miles north of Beaver Creek on more than two sections of land.These turbines will be bigger and more powerful than the four built last year by the Minwind groups northeast of Hills.Each of the new turbines will generate 1.65 megawatts per hour of electricity, compared with .950 megawatts generated by the existing Hills turbines ."That’s how much the technology has changed from one year to the next," said Minwind II President Tom Arends, Luverne.He said the technology has improved not so much in the turbine motors, but in the blades, which are now longer and more efficient at capturing wind.For example, each of the Beaver Creek turbines are the same height as the Hills towers — 70 meters. But the new blades, from tip to tip, measure 82 meters, spanning nearly the length of a football field. This compares with 54 meters on the current turbines."They’re more efficient in low wind speeds," Arends said. "We built the Hills turbines with the biggest blades we could at the time, but the technology keeps improving."Each of the new turbines will generate enough energy to service roughly 900 homes per year.With the Xcel agreement, the Beaver Creek turbines will provide power to consumers in Sioux Falls and the Twin Cities metro area.Minwind I President Mark Willers, Luverne, said crafting the agreement with Xcel was no small task."It took 11 months to get this power contract," Willers said. "These long-term agreements are very intricate."To make things more complicated, the Xcel agreement hinged on the outcome of a federal study on the proposed project.Called the Midwest Independent Systems Operator Study, it looks at power transmission in an 11-state area to figure how Minwind’s power will affect existing transmission."It studies the capacity for us to connect to the transmission lines," Willers said. "They determined we will not interfere with existing lines, substations and transmission towers that already exist."It’s a good thing, too, Willers said, because it costs about $100,000 just to request the study, and if the results came back inconclusive, it would cost another $100,000 to start the process over.With the study complete and Xcel agreement in place, the next step will be to wrap up land arrangement and to let bids on the construction phase, which will begin next spring.Both Willers and Arends say they’re relieved to have reached this stage of the new project. "One of the biggest things is rural economic development. Everyone strives for this," Arends said. "If this isn’t one of the biggest projects for this, I don’t know what is."He said he and other local investors in the turbines have gained a new appreciation for wind, that typically hinders farm work."If we have to put up with wind, why can’t we harness it and harvest it?" he said. "You’d be surprised how when we go outside now we say, ‘Isn’t this a nice windy day?’"Minwind is an off-shoot of the CornerStone Cooperative Board that started Agri-Energy Ethanol Plant in Luverne. A limited liability corporation, the Minwind groups are owned and controlled by local members, led by two, five-member boards.
