Wind farm dedication

Wind turbines now out number people in some areas of south central North Dakota Today a new wind farm was dedicated that straddles North and South Dakota There are 120 turbines in McIntosh and Dickey Counties in North Dakota and in McPherson County South Dakota CEO of ACCIONA Peter Duprey says they identified this spot five years ago He says this is a perfect spot for a wind project turbines are built on a ridge where there s usually high wind It s the largest wind farm ACCIONA has built However the Tatanka Wind Farm could have been larger more than double it s current size Peter Duprey CEO - ACCIONA Energy We could ve built a much larger project problem is there s not enough transmission to move the power to where more people live Challenge is where there is wind there s not a lot of people We re going to need to spend money on infrastructure to tap into renewable energy sources we have in this country Duprey says the federal government needs to work better with private companies interested in developing wind energy projects He says the state s cooperation and incentives helped bring the project here Duprey explains how the wind farm benefits the area Duprey we pay land leases to ranchers pay property taxes created 21 jobs powering 60 000 homes The wind energy will benefit homes in a very large region of the upper midwestern U S and Canada Meanwhile - the North Dakota Public Service Commission says the wind farm faces a fine of as much as 200 000 PSC President Susan Wefald says that in 2007 50 transmission towers were moved without PSC Approval The company has 20 days to file a response to the complaint