The Pipestone County Board of Commissioners has thrown its support behind a groundbreaking wind energy project between the Rural Minnesota Energy Board (RMEB) and the Metropolitan Counties Energy Task Force (MCETF) and the Metropolitan Council.
If the project came to fruition, participating member counties of each organization would invest a total of roughly $8 million to build two 1.65 megawatt (MW) wind turbines, which would most likely be located at the Lyon County landfill, near Russell.
The unanimous vote by the County Board at the May 9 meeting committed no dollars to the project at this time, but rather expressed the county’s intent to be part of the coalition studying the project. No decision regarding an investment will be made until the study of the cost and feasibility of the project is complete.
Pipestone County Commissioner Jim Keyes said during the meeting that the county should at least be at the table during the discussion of the project.
Also at the table are RMEB members Murray, Cottonwood, Redwood, Renville, Yellow Medicine and Chippewa Counties and MCETF members Sherburne, Anoka, Ramsey, Hennepin, Scott, Washington and Dakota Counties. Not all 17 RMEB counties chose to participate. Those RMEB members not participating are Lincoln, Lyon, Watonwan, Blue Earth, Rock, Nobles, Jackson, Martin, Faribault and Mower Counties.
In the middle of the discussion is the Southwest Regional Development Coalition (SRDC) in Slayton. SRDC Executive Director Jay Trusty said representatives from the metro area counties approached him in 2005 with the idea of a joint wind venture. Soon after, Trusty gave the MCETF delegates a tour of the wind development projects in southwest Minnesota that included a forum at the Pipestone campus of MN West with Dan Juhl of Juhl Wind.
“It’s been talked about for several years and we’ve slowly been making progress,” said Carl Michaud, Director of Environmental Services for Hennepin County. “It makes sense and we want to pursue it.”
The discussion between the RMEB and MCETF really began to take shape in 2007. A draft plan of the proposed project was developed in December of that year. The goal, according to the plan, was to develop up to 250 MW of wind energy in southwestern Minnesota to meet a portion of the electrical needs of the metropolitan governments that opt into the proposal.
“They’ve got huge loads,” Trusty said, “and we’ve got the generation capacity, but not the load and so they thought if they could work something out with the counties, they’d like to get the renewable energy and use that for some of their load.”
If successful, the multi-county collaborative project would be the first of its kind in the nation. For that reason Pipestone County Commissioner and delegate to the RMEB Marv Tinklenberg said the project requires a “huge learning curve.”
“No one’s ever done this before,” Trusty said. “You don’t know what’s possible until you get there.”
If done right, Trusty said, the project could help metro area counties hedge against their future energy cost, which is exactly what they’re looking for. Michaud agreed that the project would not only provide added electricity to the grid, but also bring in revenue for the investor counties, which would help reduce the financial burden of electricity costs.
The project’s consultants, HGA Consultants, offered preliminary estimates of a 7-to-7.5 percent return on the project investment. That depends, however, on the agreement that is made with the equity partner.
“It’s based on what the production estimates are and what the expenses are for the total project over the life of the project,” he said.
At this point, the project is in a bit of a holding pattern until all the financial details are sorted out. Trusty said the group recently turned in an interconnect application to the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA). If that application is approved, he said, the counties could then begin to negotiate a power purchase agreement.
“Basically, the next step is to figure out if we can finance the thing,” Trusty said.
One way to get things moving, Tinklenberg said, is to find an equity partner who would be interested in providing funding and reaping the tax benefits for a period of time. Essentially, it all hinges on funding and because the counties are dealing with taxpayer money, he said, it is a risky proposition.
“It takes a huge amount of dollars,” Tinklenberg said. “If there would be a way to find the revenue to fund it, I think it would be beneficial to the whole county. It’s probably more of a dream right now, until someone steps up to the plate and says, ‘Hey, I’ve got some money I want to invest.’”
Renville County Commissioner Bob Fox seemed a bit more optimistic.
“It will be coming,” he said. “My hope is that things move forward later this summer, just to show people it can be done.”
Trusty also expressed high hopes despite some early doubts.
“We’ve been working on this for a few years and for a while I wasn’t sure if we had a project,” he said. “But now it looks like we’ve got one.”
