Missouri River Energy Services and its members expand wind
energy program
September
18, 2003
Sioux Falls, S.D. --
Two more wind
generators to be added at Worthington site
Western
Minnesota Municipal Power Agency/Missouri River Energy Services will add two
more wind generators at the site of the first RiverWindssm
project near Worthington, Minn.
Contracts
were executed with NEG-Micon for the purchase and installation of two
950-kilowatt turbines on the quarter section where four 900-kilowatt
turbines were erected in 2002. Site plans have been filed with the Federal
Aviation Administration and Nobles County Planning and Zoning. A hearing for
a building permit will be held Sept. 24 in
Worthington.
Construction will begin promptly after soybeans have been harvested from the
field. The harvest should take place in early October. Soil borings will
take place immediately upon harvest and foundation work will begin about one
to two weeks after the soil borings. Delivery of nacelles, blades, and
towers for the wind generators is scheduled for Nov. 17. MRES expects the
generators to be operational before the end of this year.
“Essentially, the new turbines will be the same as the original four,
except the blades will have a variable pitch of 9 degrees and a rotor sweep
of 54 meters as opposed to 52 meters for the original four,” said MRES
Marketing Director Jeff Peters.
The
addition will bring MRES capacity at the site to 3,700 kilowatts. While MRES
is the operator for all four of the original turbines, two of those are
owned by Wisconsin Public Power Inc., a Wisconsin joint-action agency.
The
original Worthington wind turbines out-produced energy production estimates
during their first year of operation.
Energy
production for the year ended July 31, 2003 was 5,157 megawatt-hours. This
was 5.5 percent higher than the projected production of 4,890
megawatt-hours.
