From Root River Energy's Fall 2010 Newsletter....
We are proud to announce that Root River Energy has achieved a very important development milestone. We now have 30,000 acres under lease, enough to develop the project effectively up to 300 megawatts. In fact, our project’s field specialists, Barry Rogne and Jim Connolly, have signed 4,000 of these acres within the last 4 months. Signing contiguous acres across the footprint’s expanse is now the primary goal for the project’s field specialists. Contiguous acres fill in important development pockets needed to maximize the wind park’s efficiency.
We would like to sincerely thank all of the landowners in our footprint for their support of the project throughout this process. It was only two years ago, in July of 2008, that we founded our project and started to sign landowners up to participate in Root River Energy. It has been exciting to introduce the community to our project and the expansive economic benefits community wind can offer.
As we finish up the site control process, more advanced development activities can commence. These activities include utilizing our nearly 2 years of wind data to develop a preliminary turbine layout and constraints analysis. A land constraints analysis helps us develop a “buildable acres” map by applying the proper setback distances from residences, building infrastructure, and protected areas such as wetlands, wildlife habitats, and archeological and historical resources. Concurrently, this milestone increases utility and financier interest in our project as we continue to work through the MISO transmission study process and negotiate with utilities on potential Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).
We will update you on the progress we make throughout these advanced development stages as news happens. We do have a decent amount of work ahead of us to fully complete this process, but achieving this milestone marks a significant step forward in the development process.
Feel free to contact Barry Rogne (507-582-6888) or Jim Connolly (507-259-8841) if you have questions.