It announced investment of $3.6 billion with which Des Moines, Iowa’s largest utility, MidAmerican would get eighty five percent of its energy from wind.
Advertisement
Iowa Governor Terry Branstad joined Bill Fehrman, President and CEO of MidAmerican Energy at the Iowa State Fairgrounds to announce the new project.
MidAmerican is filing a request for the wind farm with the state’s Utilities Board.
The proposed project is in line with the company’s commitment to provide 100% renewable energy to its customers in the state. If it does so this fall, the wind farm could be completed as early as 2017 or 2018.
Stronger communities. Wind projects create construction jobs and permanent jobs in rural communities across the state.
In absolute terms, Iowa is the nation’s No. 2 wind-power producer, with 6,200 megawatts of wind turbines, behind Texas, according to the group.
Fehrman said the Wind XI project will generate approximately $12.5 million per year in property tax payments, $18 million per year in landowner payments, and $48 million per year in state and local expenditures associated with the project.
The company now has wind farms in operation or under construction in 23 Iowa counties and have partnered with more than 2,400 Iowa landowners. Clean energy appeals across the board.
“In Iowa we don’t just dream, we make things happen”, Branstad said. “It’s a great marketing tool for us”.
“Our company has a very bold dream and that dream is to someday deliver 100 percent renewable energy to our customers”, he said.
Late past year, Congress passed a long-term extension of the wind energy production tax credit and alternative investment tax credit with bipartisan support. Iowa already leads the nation in generating 31-percent of its energy from wind.
“MidAmerican made clean energy history today”, Bruce Nilles, senior director for Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign, said in a statement.
Advertisement
The American Wind Energy Association released an annual market report this week, finding that wind power supports a record 88,000 jobs – a 20 percent increase over a year ago. “That figure is going to grow to more than $10 billion with the completion of the Wind XI project – all with minimal impact to our customers and their costs”, Fehrman said. That project could be online in 2018 or 2019.
