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Persons wants to harvest wind Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Agri News staff writer
KENSINGTON, Minn. -- Ed Persons wants to farm wind.
He lives in west central Minnesota where his wife often complains about the wind.
"You consider it to be an attribute of the community but you never thought of it as a resource," he said. "You just never thought of it as strong enough to turn a turbine."
Persons is among 21 Grant County residents who've formed Grant County Wind. The group is small but committed to developing wind generation. It plans to install seven wind turbines in Roseville Township with each tower owned by three ownership units out of the 21 GCW members.
Each tower's ownership group will form a limited liability company under the GCW umbrella.
Last month they received $175,000 per tower or $1.225 million total from the USDA through a renewable energy grant. The USDA targeted more than $5.1 million for renewable energy systems in Minnesota out of $22.8 million awarded to 26 sates.
Most of Minnesota's projects designated to receive grants are focused on wind generation with some channeling the dollars to anaerobic and methane digesters.
Before the group can install the wind turbines, however, they need to conduct soil borings at the proposed site and work out the logistics of selling the power to Xcel Energy.
"We are in the queue," Persons said. "We have a contact person at Xcel who is working with us and we are working at getting a power purchase agreement with them."
It can't turn a shovel until it gets the power purchase agreement and receives the findings from a study. In the meantime, the group is finalizing its own internal organization. GCW started in November 2003 as part of residents' concern over finding alternative energy, especially wind. After several informational meetings and a feasibility study, the group moved forward.
"We had already decided to go forward with our wind farm enterprises," he said. "The grant was a way to establish it."
It's a venture that has risks, he said.
"We don't know the things that will make it work, if they will work," Persons said. "We don't know about the study so we are still just working on the idea that it might go -- but it might not. We don't have a lot of people involved because we had a limited number of people who showed interested in the beginning. The investment has been relatively small. I am sure the next time a wind farm is developed, we will have people lined up because they will see it work in their community."
The technology is proven, Persons said.
"There are thousands around the world," he said. "It's just more the internal stuff of getting it all hooked up and to make sure the parties are all doing their stuff that's holding up the process."
Persons says wind power is a value-added industry.
Although several factors have to be in place before the project goes through, the group has a timeline. They hope to start ground preparation and installation procedures in April, he said. |
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