(Jackson, Mn.)– The Three Waters Wind Farm in Dickinson and Osceola Counties in Iowa and Jackson County in Minnesota has a new owner. NextEra Energy recently purchased the project from Scout Clean energy. Danell Herzig, Project Manager with NextEra Energy, explains what led to the purchase…
“We had an opportunity with an in state utility that wanted to buy megawatts of renewable energy for the next three years and we were able to enter into a contract for that, we call it a power purchase agreement, and as such we needed to find a project to serve that demand and while we have a number of green field projects in the state that we’re also developing, a particular region that they wanted to take this power, we did not have a green field project ourselves so we started reaching out to other developers like Scout Green Energy and inquiring about what projects they might have that we would be interested in and the Three Waters Project was a perfect fit.”
Herzig outlines what’s next for the project…
“The project for the last four years has been developed by Scout for a project up to 200 megawatts. We’ve been able to secure a contract to sell up to 280 megawatts and as such, you know our efforts right now were really to intake all the leases that Scout had already entered into, map them, work with our meteorologist to understand what a layout might look like for a 280 megawatt turbine array, and then start talking to landowners and seeing if we can garner enough interest to get all the way up to 280 megawatts.”
While the project will take some time to complete, Herzig says it should benefit not only the land owners, but also the residents in this area.
(Courtesy Community First Broadcasting station KKOJ in Jackson, Mn.)
