STREAMER (HORIZON WIND ENERGY)

If it weren’t for the good folks in the coal and nuclear industries, there wouldn’t really be any news in this story.

It’s a report about a company in a mature power-generating industry going about its business, preparing a new 300-megawatt plant, opening regional offices and a local operations office.

So what?

Only the refusal by those in the traditional power-generating establishment to recognize a peer makes this an important story to tell.

In 2007, wind energy built more new generating capacity in the U.S. than either coal or nuclear. Only natural gas built more new capacity.

The U.S. Department of Energy says it is perfectly feasible to expect the wind energy industry to be producing 20% of U.S. power by 2030. That is the share of the power market nuclear energy has captured in the last 30 years.

Nuclear might have captured more of the power market had there not been a disaster at Chernobyl, a near disaster at Three Mile Island, a failure to solve the problem of what to do with the waste and problems with carcinogenic leaks and spills from France to Japan. Wind energy expects no disasters, generates no waste and has been known to cause nothing worse than headaches. Some complain it despoils the landscape; they haven’t seen mountaintop removal coal mining or what Chernobyl looks like.

NewEnergyNews will keep reporting this story as long as the good folks in the traditional power generating industries keep making it one.

Great 1-page read: A Step-By-Step Guide For Developing A WindFarm

Horizon is building all over the U.S. (click to enlarge)

Texas wind energy firm to expand operations in Minnesota, Iowa; Horizon firm to add up to 25 workers in Minnesota
Dee DePass, September 29, 2008 (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

WHO
Horizon Wind Energy (Brian Lammers, Midwest development director)

WHAT
Horizon Wind Energy is opening a new maintenance facility in Minnesota, a regional office in Minneapolis and will build a major new wind installation near the Minnesota-Iowa border.

The Prairie Star Wind Farm (click to enlarge)

WHEN
- Horizon’s Prairie Star Wind Farm began generating in December 2007
- Horizon announced September 26 plans for the new offices, operations facility and wind instalation.

WHERE
- Horizon Wind Energy is based in Houston, Texas.
- The new maintenance/operations facility will be in Leroy, Minn.
- The Prairie Star Wind Farm is near Austin, Minn., in Mower County.
- The new Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm will be in Howard and Mitchell counties, Iowa, just below the Minnesota border.

WHY
- The $2 million operations and maintenance facility in Leroy will oversee the combined 401 megawatts produced in Minnesota and Iowa. It will be run by 10 technical workers.
- The regional office in Minneapolis will have up to 15 employees.
- Prairie Star Wind Farm cost ~$180 million. It has 61 wind turbines and sells its 101-megawatt generation capacity to Great River Energy in Maplewood, Minn..
- The new Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm will cost $600 million and have a 300-megawatt capacity.

click to enlarge

QUOTES
From the Horizon website: “At Prairie Star, Horizon Wind Energy is pioneering the use of a community-based venue sharing mechanism. Because wind energy is compatible with rural land uses, most of the land remains available for farming. Landowners within the defined project area receive annual payments regardless of whether or not they are hosting wind turbines or other wind farm related facilities. Payment amounts depend upon acreage “inside” the project area, whether or not landowners have turbines on their land, or roads and wires across landowner fields within the project area.”