(Estherville)– A local rural electric cooperative has been awarded federal bonds to build two wind farms in northwest Iowa.
Terry Bruns, General Manager of Estherville-based Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative, says they’ve been awarded 43 million dollars in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds through the Internal Revenue Service.
Bruns says they’re looking at locations in Dickinson and Kossuth counties as possible locations for the projects, with up to seven turbines at each. Bruns says those turbines would be connected to substations owned by Cornbelt Power Cooperative, with the wind energy going directly into ILEC’s distribution system.
Bruns says the operations would be capable of producing a combined 74 million kilowatt hours…enough to power more than 400-thousand homes.
He says they’ve been able to find some turbines already from Basin Electric Cooperative, based out of Bismarck, North Dakota. Bruns says there’s a possibility those could be shipped and installed yet in 2008, but he says they haven’t signed any documents just yet.
Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative serves over 12-thousand member-owners in Buena Vista, Cherokee, Clay, Dickinson, Emmet, Kossuth, Palo Alto and Pocahontas counties.
