Big Expansion of Wind in North Dakota, Ohio Gets First Big Wind Farm

Wind could supply 25% of North Dakota’s electricity next year and Ohio just opened it first utility-scale wind farm.

North Dakota

Thanks to policies that support clean energy, wind could supply 25% of North Dakota’s electricity by the end of next year.

If 500 megawatts (MW) of new wind gets installed as planned, wind would grow by over a third next year, to 1878 MW.

Five projects that expand existing wind farms are either under construction or will be started soon, including a new 150 MW wind farm.

The projects are moving along quickly to get ahead of the  crucial federal incentive that’s about to expire. The federal production tax credit gives companies 2.2 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity they produce.

Congress has allowed the Production Tax Credit to expire three times in the past 12 years – it’s set to expire again in 2012. Each time it expires, developers rush to build projects before the deadline … and then the industry stalls.

Earlier this month, the Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan agency that provides policy research for Congress, warned that obstacles impeding the expansion of wind energy in the US include "the history of policy-induced boom-and-bust cycles in wind energy investment, which may lead wind turbine manufacturers and component suppliers to conclude that future U.S. demand for their products is too uncertain."

AWEA is calling for a four-year extension of the tax credit, saying that its expiration in 2004 led to a 77% decrease in new wind energy installations.

Ohio

The first commercial, large-scale wind project in Ohio started producing energy last week, thanks to the state’s policy support for clean energy.

Rather than building the Timber Road II Wind Farm on one huge site, the developer is leasing land from over 100 local landowners, who will see millions of dollars in revenue as a result.

Over 60% of the components are made in the US, even though 
Spain-based EDP Renewables (ELI:EDPR) built the wind farm using 100 turbines made by Denmark-based Vestas (CPH: VWS).

The 99 MW farm will provide electricity for 27,000 homes.

Why was it built in Ohio? Because of a strong renewable energy standard, which requires utilities to buy renewable energy. "Policy matters, it was critical for us to get this project done," says Gabriel Alonso, EDP CEO.

It could have been built three miles away in Indiana, he notes, but the state doesn’t have policies that support clean energy.

Another reason the project got built in Ohio is because the state already has the supply chain in turbine parts manufacturing to support it. And it has training centers ready to supply employees to perform maintenance and repair on wind equipment.

"Opening up Ohio to this kind of manufacturing is the fruition of a lot of hard work, and now lots of people want to manufacture here. You really want to build (the products) close to where you have the wind generation. This is the first step in what we think will be a new industry in Ohio," Denise Bode of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) told the Times Bulletin.