“The 67 1.5 MW GE turbines near Dexter, Minnesota, and about 25 miles south of Rochester, Minnesota, generate around 335,000 MWh of electricity yearly, enough to power more than 39,000 houses.”
In Minnesota, how many wind turbines are there?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) What began with a few wind turbines 20 years ago today generates over 20% of Minnesota’s electricity. However, in rural Minnesota, the towering blades have sparked debate and worries.
Ad experts voted Budweiser’s advertisement promoting wind energy as one of the finest from last year’s Super Bowl.
A Facebook video that went viral received mixed opinions on a farm far away.
“Hello, Budweiser,” says the narrator. Tom Behrends is a resident of Jackson County, Minnesota. It looks that you are now a strong supporter of wind energy. Thank you for supporting a business that destroys people’s lives, muttered Behrends into his smartphone.
Tom Behrends has had a 15-year connection with the wind. His then-wife inquired whether the neighbors could set up relatively new technology while he was deployed with the Red Bulls to Iraq.
“She wrote me an email saying they want to set up some wind turbines across the road,” she added. ‘I actually don’t care,’ Behrends replied. ‘I like electricity, so that’s OK with me.’
He’s spent years observing what he refers to as “disruptions.” Behrends claims that his previously calm rural existence has taken an irreversible turn. Between what he sees on the exterior and what he sees on the inside.
“It’s borderline criminal in my opinion.” Trying to persuade folks that it isn’t that loud. When people realize it’s there, shadow flicker won’t worry you, he remarked.
When the light catches whirling blades and casts constant shadows, the government allows 30 hours of shadow flicker every year. A maximum of fifty decibels of turbine noise each year is also allowed, which is comparable to the sound of a dishwasher. According to Behrends, there are no actual ways to test the criteria, and no one is keeping track of them.
“My sense is that they think everyone out here is a dang redneck,” Behrends added, “and they’re going to explain their way around this by basically saying crawl back into your house and shut up.”
WCCO visited farmers in Trimont who had founded their own wind cooperative fourteen years ago.
“The great issue with farmers was that when the wind blew, it would bring down the corn,” Neal Von Ohlen told WCCO in 2004. “Now, when the wind blows, it might knock down the corn, but at least it was a good wind day.”
Farmers earn $5,000 per year for each turbine installed on their farm. They also receive a $50 per acre land payout as part of an equal LLC.
“We wanted to make sure that everyone got something out of it.” Then you don’t have to worry about getting a turbine since there isn’t as much enmity between landowners where they wind up, according to Von Ohlen.
Approximately 200 turbines dot the southern Minnesota countryside now that the huge project is complete, delivering enough power for nearly 100,000 homes.
“You don’t notice something after it’s been there for a year.” You don’t have any. Von Ohlen explained that it’s merely a part of the scenery.
And what about any complaints about your way of life? All of the original landowners agreed to have their leases extended.
“You’d expect that if there were any difficulties with health, flicker, or noise, you’d have one that didn’t sign,” Von Ohlen added.
Associate Professor Jiarong Hong of the University of Minnesota’s St. Anthony Falls Laboratory believes that wind energy technology has yet to be thoroughly explored.
“I believe Minnesota is on the cutting edge of wind energy research,” Hong added.
The institution is one of just a few in the country with a dedicated research turbine. They have yet to discover any direct health effects after multiple research. Turbine manufacturers are now producing quieter turbines. In the future, the U expects them to be bigger and better.
Minnesota has around 2,400 wind turbines, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Other wind energy organizations claim that such turbines are responsible for some of the Midwest’s lowest electricity costs. We have a 15% lower cost of living than the national average. A year-to-year savings of roughly $200.
In Minnesota, where can you find wind turbines?
Minnesota has 3,500 megawatts of installed wind power capacity by the end of 2016. (MW). In 2016, wind power generated approximately 18 percent of Minnesota’s electricity, placing the state sixth in the country in terms of wind energy generation as a percentage of total electricity generation.
Buffalo Ridge Wind Farm (225 MW), Fenton Wind Farm (205.5 MW), Nobles Wind Farm (201 MW), Odell Wind Farm (200 MW), and Bent Tree Wind Farm are all large wind farms in Minnesota (201 MW).
Why is it that Minnesota has so many windmills?
Many of the state’s wind farms use wide swaths of open prairie as a source of renewable energy. Minnesota is a large wind energy producer, ranking in the top ten in the US for wind energy generation.
Where in Minnesota do you find the most wind turbines?
Even still, if you live near one of the large new turbines, there may be some disadvantages. Larger blades can cause more “shadow flicker,” or shadows thrown on surrounding homes, which is already a concern with wind farms.
While the towering heights of Plum Creek drew no substantial opposition from its soon-to-be neighbors, industry insiders think that the visibility of larger turbines could be an issue.
“They’re definitely more noticeable from afar,” says Mark Bolinger, a renewable energy research specialist at California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Bigger turbines will help reach goals
If long-term clean energy targets are to be realized, Minnesota and the Dakotas, which are currently large wind-power producers, will certainly host a lot more turbines.
Minnesota will get 21% of its electricity from wind in 2020, excluding power generated in the Dakotas and consumed in Minnesota.
“Wind still has a strong 8 to 10% contribution to our electricity sector,” said Aditya Ranade, deputy commissioner for energy resources at the Minnesota Department of Commerce.
Larger turbines will aid in this goal’s achievement by capturing more wind with each spin of their blades.
“We hope to see cost savings as a result of the scale,” Ranade said. “With the same footprint, you can receive more energy.”
According to a study published recently in the scientific journal Nature Energy, wind farm levelized costs declined far more than experts predicted between 2014 and 2019, from 28% to 36%, and the introduction of larger turbines was a key contributor.
Individual wind turbine output capacity will expand from an average of 2.5 megawatts in 2019 to an estimate of 5.5 megawatts by 2035, regardless of any federal tax subsidies, according to the report.
The majority of the turbines at Dakota Range will be 4.2 megawatts with a 446-foot rotor diameter (the cross section of the circle swept by the blades). They’ll generate almost 70% more electricity than a 2-megawatt turbine with a 393-foot wingspan.
Despite the larger blades, the Dakota Range turbine towers are similar in size to those at current large Xcel wind farms. However, because the blades at Plum Creek are longer than those at Dakota Range, the wind towers must be taller.
“At some point, you have to increase tower size,” Bolinger remarked, “or you won’t have enough space on the blade’s downswing.”
Turbine visibility already an issue
Larger turbines can assist the aesthetics of the countryside in one way: developers require fewer of them (assuming the project’s total size remains constant). However, because they are taller, they stand out more.
“Which do people prefer: bigger or more? Probably neither if you support building on the landscape, and neither if you oppose it “Clean Grid Alliance, a St. Paul-based organization that represents renewable energy providers and activists, is led by Beth Soholt.
For the proposed Big Bend Wind project in southeastern Minnesota, turbine visibility is a thorny issue. The Lower Sioux Indian Community and the Minnesota State Historical Society are concerned about its proximity to the Jeffers Petroglyphs site near Comfrey.
The 7,000-year-old rock sculptures are considered sacred by various tribes. Big Bend’s turbines, according to the tribes and historical society, would be too close to the petroglyphs, destroying the landscape and so decreasing the historic monument.
Apex Clean Energy, the developer of Big Bend, responded by lowering the number of planned turbines from 64 to 56 and relocating some of them further away. Apex, on the other hand, swapped in larger turbines to retain the wind farm’s total production capacity. They will be 85 feet taller than the initial plans, with a height of 655 feet.
Big Bend would be one of Minnesota’s largest wind farms, with a capacity of 308 megawatts; Plum Creek, with individual turbines ranging from 6.2 to 6.2 megawatts, would be by far the largest, with a capacity of 414 megawatts.
The PUC unanimously approved Plum Creek, which would be located between Westbrook and Walnut Grove, earlier this month.
Tuma, the PUC commissioner, did sound a cautionary note about the new breed of wind turbines being installed in areas like Plum Creek.
“They’re fantastic. I believe we should construct them “Tuma remarked. “However, one thing that will be a difficulty for these communities that was never a problem with the communities we developed previously is that shadow flicker will be larger.”
The predicted shadow flicker at multiple sites within Plum Creek’s area might easily exceed the industry-recommended 30 hours per year level. Those locations are all held by “participants,” or property owners who are leasing their land to National Grid, the wind farm’s developer.
Plum Creek was required by the PUC to develop a shadow flicker plan or obtain agreements or consent waivers from participating landowners so that they would know how much flicker they would be exposed to.
Size makes construction trickier
According to Tim Maag, vice president and general manager for wind energy at Golden Valley-based Mortenson, one of the largest wind farm builders in the United States, foundations for the largest new turbines require up to 1,000 cubic yards of concrete, which is double the amount required for more conventionally sized machines.
The Dakota Range is being built by Mortenson for Xcel Energy. On the slightly rolling fields north of Watertown, some 160 union workerscrane operators, iron workers, millwrights, and laborerswere raising turbines on a recent day.
They would have erected the “nacelle,” the tower-top enclosure for all of the generating components, on the ground for a smaller turbine. Mortenson’s crew had to build the nacelles “in the air” because the larger turbine’s motor and generator weighed far more, making it a more difficult undertaking for the employees.
Instead of lifting the nacelle in one piece, a 400-ton crane lifted each component individually and placed it on the tower. Before the assembly was finished, the crane made eight or nine “picks,” rather of four or five.
The most difficult aspect of producing larger turbines is transportation, which includes anything from loading massive blades onto ships to trucking them to isolated locations like Dakota Range. The majority of the blades at Dakota Range are 73 yards long, resulting in a tight turning radius for truck drivers.
“Eventually, the blades will be so big that they’ll come in two pieces and have to be put together on site,” Maag predicted.
Who owns Minnesota’s windmills?
Minnesota Power customers now receive half of their electricity from renewable sources, making the firm the first Minnesota utility to do so.
Minnesota Power’s “EnergyForward” strategy for transitioning to greener energy sources while satisfying customer expectations for reliable and cheap electricity has been a huge success. This month, the Nobles 2 wind project in southern Minnesota became operational, marking a significant milestone for the company.
Minnesota Power’s wind portfolio has increased to roughly 870 MW of owned and contracted wind capacity with the completion of Nobles 2. Minnesota Power’s wind portfolio is now more geographically diverse, with the Nobles 2 wind addition complementing its North Dakota wind sites and contracts.
“We are committed to advancing a sustainable future of reliable, affordable, and increasingly lower-carbon energy for our customers and communities, and this is an important milestone in our clean energy transformation from almost entirely relying on coal to delivering 50 percent renewable energy, all while keeping our residential rates among the lowest in the state of Minnesota and improving the reliability of our system,” said Bethany Owen, ALLETE president and CEO. “We are proud of how far we have progressed in this transformation, but we recognize that we still have a long way to go.”
Minnesota Power will receive renewable energy from the Nobles 2 wind project under a 20-year power purchase agreement. Nobles 2 Power Partners, whose investors include an ALLETE subsidiary, energy business Tenaska, and Bright Canyon Energy, owns the project, which is also an investment for ALLETE.
The Great Northern Transmission line, which was electrified this past June, was the first 2020 project to help Minnesota Power attain this milestone. Manitoba Hydro’s 250 MW of carbon-free hydropower is delivered to Minnesota Power customers via this 500 kV cable. Minnesota Power’s power purchase agreements with Manitoba Hydro feature a unique wind provision that allows the company to balance its intermittent wind energy in North Dakota with on-demand hydroelectric power.
Minnesota Power is making additional efforts to alter its energy supply beyond this milestone.
“The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission will receive Minnesota Power’s next biannual Integrated Resource Plan in February,” said Julie Pierce, Minnesota Power’s vice president of strategy and planning.
That plan will detail scenarios for the careful transition of our coal units at Boswell 3 and 4, as well as the next steps in the transition to even more renewable energy and additional grid investments to improve reliability, all while ensuring affordability, community health, and job opportunities for our employees.
Minnesota Power’s EnergyForward strategy includes the following initiatives:
- Between 2005 and now, carbon emissions have been cut in half.
- Seven of the nine coal-fired generators have been retired or idled.
- Wind energy was added to the mix at a rate of roughly 900 MW.
- Solar energy has been added at a rate of 11 megawatts per year, with plans to add another 20 megawatts in 2021.
- Transmission and distribution systems have become more reliable and resilient.
- Refurbished Minnesota’s largest hydroelectric system to ensure its continued operation for decades.
- Smart meters and other technology have been added to provide customers more control over their energy use and expenditures.
Minnesota Power serves 145,000 customers, 15 towns, and industrial clients in the United States in a 26,000-square-mile service region in northeastern Minnesota.
What is the time it takes for a wind turbine to pay for itself?
Environmental lifespan assessments of 2-megawatt wind turbines proposed for a big wind farm in the US Pacific Northwest were conducted by US academics. They conclude in the International Journal of Sustainable Manufacturing that a wind turbine with a 20-year working life will provide a net benefit within five to eight months of being put online in terms of cumulative energy payback, or the time it takes to produce the amount of energy required for production and installation.
Buffalo Ridge has how many wind turbines?
The subsidiaries of NextEra Energy Resources have been helping to drive the state’s economic growth and quality of life since 2003, as well as getting our country closer to energy independence. We’ve invested more than $280 million in Minnesota so far, with two wind energy hubs up and running.
The Buffalo Ridge Wind project has the following features:
- Up to 40 GE wind turbines with a total capacity of 109 megawatts (MW) of pure, renewable electricity.
- The project is expected to start operations by the end of 2020, pending municipal and state clearances.
What is the life expectancy of a wind turbine battery?
“We looked at batteries and other promising technologies for storing solar and wind energy on the electrical grid,” said Charles Barnhart, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford’s Global Climate and Energy Project and the study’s lead author (GCEP).
“Our major goal was to determine their total energetic cost, or the amount of fuel and electricity necessary to construct and operate various storage methods. When energy prices are taken into account, grid-scale batteries make sense for storing excess solar energy, but not for wind.”
The study, which was funded by GCEP, was published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science’s online edition.
Climate change and renewable energy
The majority of electricity in the United States comes from coal and natural gas power plants, both of which contribute considerably to global warming by generating massive volumes of carbon dioxide. Solar and wind energy are both emission-free and renewable, but they rely on the sun or the wind to function.
“For the grid to run efficiently, electricity supply must constantly match power demand, but that isn’t always the case with renewables,” Barnhart said. “Wind farms, for example, may produce too much electricity at night when demand is low. This extra energy must be saved or utilised somewhere else. Otherwise, it will be thrown away. The US system, on the other hand, has very limited storage capacity.”
To overcome the shortage of grid-scale storage, a variety of technologies are being explored. The Stanford researchers looked at five different battery types: lead-acid, lithium-ion, sodium-sulfur, vanadium-redox, and zinc-bromine.
Barnhart estimated the energetic cost of installing and sustaining each of the five grid-scale battery systems in a prior study. He discovered that lead-acid batteries had the highest energetic cost and lithium-ion batteries had the lowest.
“We calculated how much energy is required throughout the battery’s whole lifecycle,” Barnhart added, “from the mining of raw materials through the installation of the final gadget.” “Batteries with a high energy cost use more fossil fuels and, as a result, emit more CO2 over their lifetime. If the energy cost of a battery is too high, its overall contribution to global warming may outweigh the environmental benefits of the wind or solar farm it was designed to support.”
He and his colleagues calculated the energy cost of grid-scale photovoltaic solar cells and wind turbines for this research.
“Both wind turbines and photovoltaics produce more energy than they cost to build and operate,” said Michael Dale, a postdoctoral scholar at the GCEP and one of the study’s co-authors. “However, our calculations revealed that wind turbines have a far lower overall energetic cost than conventional solar panels, which require a lot of energy, largely from fossil fuels, to process silicon and fabricate other components.”
To store or curtail?
The scientists then looked at the energy cost of curtailment, which is the technique of turning off solar panels and wind turbines to limit excess electricity production on the grid.
“It appears that curtailing renewable resources is a waste,” Barnhart remarked. “Wind turbines, on the other hand, are routinely throttled by grid operators to avoid a sudden surge of extra electricity that may overload transmission lines and trigger blackouts. As renewable energy grows more common in the United States, curtailment rates are projected to rise.”
Shutting down a clean energy source sounds pointless, but is storing excess energy in batteries a viable alternative?
The researchers contrasted the energetic cost of restricting solar and wind output to the energetic cost of grid-scale storage to find out. Their calculations were based on the “energy return on investment” formula, which divides the amount of energy produced by a technology by the amount of energy required to create and maintain it.
The researchers calculated that the energy required to develop a solar farm is comparable to the energy required to produce each of the five battery technologies using that calculation. “Using batteries to store solar power during periods of low demand would thus be energy-efficient,” Dale explained.
For wind farms, the findings were considerably different. The researchers discovered that reducing wind output reduces the energy return on investment by 10%. However, storing excess wind-generated electricity in batteries leads in even greater savings, ranging from over 20% for lithium-ion batteries to more than 50% for lead-acid batteries.
“Ideally, the energetic cost of limiting a resource should be at least equivalent to the cost of storing it,” Dale added. “That is true for photovoltaics, but the energetic cost of curtailment for wind farms is significantly lower than for battery storage. As a result, shutting down a wind turbine rather than storing the excess electricity it creates would be more energy efficient.”
He likened it to purchasing a safe. “You wouldn’t buy a $100 safe to keep a $10 watch,” he explained. “Similarly, building energy-inefficient batteries for an energy-inefficient resource like wind makes no sense, but it does make sense for solar systems, which take a lot of energy to create.”
Barnhart said that the most efficient technique to improve a battery’s energetic performance is to extend its cycle life. Lithium-ion batteries have a four-year life span, or 6,000 charge-discharge cycles. Lead-acid batteries have a 700-cycle life span. According to him, batteries must be able to withstand 10,000 to 18,000 cycles in order to store energy efficiently on the grid.
“Storing energy consumes it, and reducing energy wastes it,” Barnhart explained. “In either instance, the overall energy return on investment will be reduced.”