About the Wind Project

Goodhue Wind - Wind Farm at Twilight

Project Information:

Overview

Goodhue Wind, LLC was founded in the fall of 2008 by National Wind, LLC and a group of Goodhue County landowners and investors.

In November 2008, a Project Advisory Board consisting of five Goodhue County landowners was formed. These members are Corky Buckingham, Dennis Gadient, Wayne Gadient, Marty Kehren and Gary Luebke (Chair).

Goodhue Wind is developing a 78 MW community-owned wind project located across 12,000 acres of land in Goodhue County, Minnesota. It is primarily located in the townships of Goodhue, Belle Creek and Minneola. The site is situated approximately 50 miles southeast of Minneapolis and is served by Highway 52. The area included in the wind farm is mostly composed of agricultural land.

A key benefit of this wind project is the local advisory board. The board has worked progressively to help find answers to community concerns. To be sensitive to community concerns, Goodhue Wind is voluntarily implementing a minimum 1,500-foot setback from all non-participating residences. 1,500 feet represents about five football fields and is significantly more than the setbacks for most existing wind projects. No other wind project in Minnesota has implemented such a conservative uniform setback. Based on Goodhue Wind’s sound profile, the state of Minnesota requires only an estimated 750-foot setback (although setbacks of 1,000 feet are more typical).

Current Stage

Goodhue Wind has strong community support with 215 project participants and over 12,000 acres leased. The 78 megawatt project has a turbine agreement for 52, 1.5 megawatt wind turbines. Goodhue Wind has secured financing, along with completing one year of wind studies. The project also has a very viable transmission interconnection. Goodhue Wind, unlike other projects in the state, will not need new high voltage transmission lines built, helping the project save on cash flow.

Goodhue Wind submitted its permit application in October of 2009 and plans to receive its site permit in June of 2010. The project hopes to start construction in the summer or fall of 2010 and complete construction by the Spring of 2011.

Learn more about our development progress below.

Project Timeline

November 2008: Advisory Board Elected February 2009: Met Tower Installed April 2009: Site Control Goal Reached June 2009: Power Purchase Agreement Awarded August 2009: Bus Tour September 2009: Site Control Milestone Met October 2009: Site Permit Filed December 2009: Turbine and Financing Agreement January 2010: Meeting with Signed Landowners and County Commissioners March 2010: Site-Control Activities Wrap Up April 2010: Draft Site Permit Issued & Wind Moratorium Denied June 2010: Goodhue Wind Chooses Carstensen Construction July 2010: July 21st & July 22nd Public Hearing on Site Permit Anticipated 2010 Schedule

Fall of 2008

Formation - Goodhue Wind, LLC is formed.

November 2008

Advisory Board Formation - A local advisory board, consisting of Goodhue landowners and investors is formed.

Wind Data Collection – A 60-meter met tower has been collecting wind data since February 2009. This assessment has been essential in determining the wind facility’s profitability and provides an accurate estimation of energy production. A standard practice is to collect at least one year of on-site wind data. The National Wind Assessments team will use the met tower's data and correlate it with other wind data from the area to optimize turbine layout, making the wind farm as productive and efficient as possible.

April 2009

Site Control Milestone - In only 7 short months, Goodhue Wind’s field team, consisting of Wayne Gadient and Doug Nowicki, signed 5,000 acres, almost half of the acres needed for the project’s development, indicating the project has significant support.

June 2009

Power Purchase Agreement Awarded - Goodhue Wind receives a Power Purchase Agreement. Due to the tough economic climate in 2009, Minnesota’s utilities issued only a few power purchase agreements. This highly selective process indicates that only the projects with the greatest potential in relation to transmission, wind assessment, and financing viability were chosen.

August 2009

Bus Tour - National Wind organized a bus tour that took 20 Goodhue Wind landowners to a wind farm in Dexter, Minnesota. Landowners met with a family who lives within 1500 feet from a wind turbine. They learned about this family’s positive experience living with wind energy. Landowners got the chance to get their questions answered directly. The landowners also met with the operations crew to learn about how the turbines are kept properly maintained. Goodhue Wind’s developers, Chuck Burdick and Ben Kerl also attended to share more about the economic development benefits of community wind.

September 2009

Site Control Milestone - Wayne Gadient and Doug Nowicki achieve an amazing site control milestone in less than a year. They have signed just over 10,000 acres for Goodhue Wind, LLC. This is nearly 80 percent of the acres needed for the project’s development.

October 2009

Site Permit Filed- Goodhue Wind’s site permit application, filed in October, was recently accepted (January 2010) as complete by the State of Minnesota. The public comment period remained open until January 22, 2010. The design and construction team will be working closely with Goodhue County on local permitting and construction coordination over the next several months.

December 2009

Turbine and Financing Agreement - Goodhue Wind secures a turbine and financing agreement. Goodhue Wind’s project will include 52 1.5 megawatt turbines.

January 2010

Landowner Meeting - On Wednesday, January 13th, the project hosted a meeting at the Goodhue Lion’s Club to communicate recent progress, accomplishments and next steps. Almost fifty community members were in attendance. Landowners learned about the progress made on permitting, site control, turbine selection and specifics about the construction process. This includes Goodhue Wind’s efforts to preserve and improve local roads.

Commissioners’ Meeting - January 19th marked an important day for Goodhue Wind. Goodhue Wind supporters presented to the County's Commissioners on the project's behalf. Signed landowners along with the project's development team led by senior wind farm developer, Chuck Burdick, wanted the commissioners and the community to understand the great benefits the project will provide the local area.

March 2010

Site Control Wrap-up Wayne Gadient and Doug Nowicki have signed just over 12,000 acres for the project’s development, with a full 215 project participants. This is enough acres to effectively develop the wind project.

April 2010

Draft Site Permit Issued On April 15th, The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) accepted Goodhue Wind as a Community-Based Energy Development (C-BED) and issued a draft site permit for the project. The commission also accepted Xcel Energy’s request to approve the project’s Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) and denied requests for contested case hearings.

OES Permitting Schedule

Goodhue Planning Commission Meeting On April 19th, the Goodhue Planning Commission denied the opponents’ requests for a wind moratorium and their changes to the current zoning ordinance, asking for a half mile turbine setback. They also established a subcommittee to examine the current ordinance. Goodhue Wind’s participants attended and told the commission that enforcing a half mile setback is unnecessary and would set a precedent that would drive out much of Minnesota’s future wind development, taking away the community’s opportunity to benefit from it. This issue will be debated at the County Commissioners meeting on May 4th at 9am.

June 2010

Goodhue Wind chooses Carstensen Construction as the general contractor for its 78 megawatt wind farm. Carstensen will design and construct the roads, foundations and the operations and maintenance building along with erecting the wind turbines and installing the collection system. Learn more about Carstensen at http://www.carstensencontracting.com/. Construction plans to start by October 2010.

July 2010

July 21st Public Hearing On Draft Site Permit

The purpose of the public hearing held on July 21st and July 22nd was to receive input about the project from members of the local community and general public. During the public hearing, members of the public offered oral testimony, exhibits for inclusion in the public hearing record, and asked questions of Goodhue Wind's development team. Goodhue Wind's development team filed summary comments prior to the hearing; view these here.

Interested persons commented on the certificate of need and site permit applications, environmental report, draft site permit and on the project generally.At the close of the written comment period, Judge Lipman will prepare a written summary of the comments received at the hearing and file it with the Commission which will consider them in its deliberations of the certificate of need and site permit applications.

Written testimony was accepted through August 6th, 2010.

It is expected that a decision on whether to issue a site permit or not will be made after Labor Day.

Anticipated Schedule

September 2010: Receive Site Permit
Summer or Fall 2010: Start construction
Winter or Spring 2011: Complete construction