NIMBY -- March 19, 2015

The Dickinson Press is reporting:

Dickinson Wind LLC, a subsidiary of Wilton, Conn.-based NextEra Energy Resources LLC, has asked the North Dakota Public Service Commission to approve up to 87 wind turbines west of Highway 8, with Interstate 94 bisecting the area.

The project will produce 150 megawatts that Basin Electric Power Cooperative has agreed to purchase. Dickinson Wind also plans to build a 31-mile, 230-kilovolt overhead transmission line to connect the project to the Belfield-to-Rhame transmission line approximately 10 miles southwest of Dickinson. It would then transmit power into Basin Electric’s transmission system. The project will produce enough energy to power 37,500 homes, according to NextEra Energy.

No price estimate for the project was provided.

Though it would be its first project in Stark County, this isn’t NextEra Energy’s first wind project in North Dakota. The company has approximately 550 wind turbines producing 850 megawatts of energy in seven counties.

“Obviously, North Dakota has a good wind resource,” Stengel said.

Mostly because Connecticut does NOT allow wind turbines in their own state, he might have added.

It's interesting that a Connecticut company is so interested in North Dakota wind. This might be why, from wiki:

Connecticut is the only state in the United States to block the construction of utility scale wind turbines.

Connecticut maintains a renewable portfolio standard that requires 23% of the state's electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020.

Connecticut remains the only state in the United States to disallow the construction of utility-scale wind turbines. The state's two and a half year old ban on wind power was enacted in 2011, ostensibly to provide time for the Siting Council to enact regulations governing the siting of wind turbines in the state.

Those regulations were written in 2012 to address health and safety issues related to wind power, such as maximum noise levels and distances from neighboring properties, but the legislative committee tasked with approving state agency regulations has repeatedly refused to approve the regulations. On November 26, 2013 the Connecticut General Assembly's Regulation Review Committee, for the fourth time since 2012, blocked the Connecticut Siting Council's Regulations that would have ended the state's ban on new wind power projects. The committee, led by co-chairman State Representative Selim Noujaim, forced the Siting Council to withdraw its proposal.

This ban stands in stark contrast to Connecticut’s renewable energy laws requiring utilities to purchase 27% clean electricity (23% renewable) by the year 2020.

The state will no doubt purchase the necessary "clean" electricity from out-of-state, perhaps building a transmission line from Dickinson, North Dakota, to Hartford, Connecticut, via Minnesota and Iowa.

And, of course, Massachusetts defeated an effort to put in Cape Wind off-shore.

NIMBY.