National Wind, LLC, announced Friday the creation of Little Rock Wind, LLC, a community-owned wind energy company based in Big Stone County.
Little Rock Wind and National Wind will together develop up to 150 megawatts of wind energy within the county, and the two companies are currently in preliminary talks with area landowners.
The project will take an estimated five to seven years to complete, and it is the seventh community-based project in the state for Minneapolis-based National Wind.
Several days ago, the company announced plans to develop a community-owned, 40-megawatt wind energy project in Renville County, southwest of the Twin Cities.
Community-based, or C-BED, projects, provide tax breaks to wind energy providers because they rely on local entities, such as landowners, engineers, and lawyers, for development.
Construction of C-BED projects has been spurred by state mandates that require electric utilities to purchase 25 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2025.
Upon completion, the Big Stone Country project will be a mid-sized farm for National Wind, which will sell the power to energy suppliers such as Xcel Energy.
At the beginning of 2009, Minnesota ranked fourth nationally in total capacity for wind energy by producing more than 1,750 megawatts annually. The state ranks ninth in potential capacity.
