From Root River Energy's Spring 2010 Newsletter....
One of the most important parts of making a wind project work is making certain that enough acres are under lease to develop it to its full potential.
Since 2008, Root River Energy’s field specialists, Barry Rogne and Jim Connolly, have worked in tandem with local landowners and the project’s founders to gain local interest and participation in the project.
We now have nearly 25,000 acres under lease, almost 5,000 more than what we announced in Root River Energy’s fall 2009 newsletter. This brings us even closer to our ultimate goal of 30,000 acres; the amount necessary to build our project up to 300 megawatts. Our team’s current focus is to sign acres that help fill in our footprint, making it even more robust and contiguous. With over one year of on-site wind studies complete, we are excited to start our preliminary layout work this Spring.
You may be wondering why such a large number of acres are needed to develop a wind project. For commercial size wind projects such as ours, each turbine requires roughly 100 acres for spacing purposes. This spacing allows for mechanical efficiency, the creation of access roads for turbine maintenance, construction of electrical collection lines to connect the turbines, and consideration of environmental compliance measures. All of these factors, along with the on-site wind data reports, help create an accurate layout of what the wind farm will look like across the 30,000 acre span needed for a 300 megawatt project.
It is important to note that as little as 1 percent of a landowner’s total acreage leased is needed for turbines and access roads, meaning as much as 99 percent remains free for other uses, such as farming or ranching. The amount of land used for access road construction and the turbine’s foundation is no more than 1 acre, often around ½ an acre. Best efforts will be made to construct access roads reasonably perpendicular to public roads or parallel to existing tillage practices and in a way which minimizes the interruption of farming operations. Also, animals can graze right up to the base of the turbine, without any problems. Farming the wind is therefore a nice compliment to crop farming!
Return to Root River Energy's Newsletter Page
