LAKEFIELD -- The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to grant a Certificate of Need for the Lakefield wind project, just days after another vote on the issue was deadlocked at 2-2.
"The comment was that the statute needs to be looked at, evaluated by the legislature," said Dan Wolf, assistant executive secretary with the Minnesota PUC. "It was not an issue specific to this project, but more about the underlying statutory language about the Certificate of Need."
EnXco's massive wind turbine project near Lakefield will include the building of 134 new 1.5 megawatt wind turbines, with 204 landowners participating in the project.
Groundbreaking was set for this week, but was delayed after the Minnesota PUC failed Thursday to give the project a Certificate of Need based on the fact that Indianapolis Power and Light was purchasing the electricity generated by the Lakefield project. As such, the project had already been evaluated by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, but the Minnesota PUC was not certain if the Indiana standards were identical with those of Minnesota.
At the end of Thursday's earlier discussion of the issue, the PUC vote was stalled at 2-2, with one member being absent due to illness.
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On Wednesday, however, the group unanimously approved issuing the Certificate of Need with a 5-0 vote.
The PUC also voted to issue the Lakefield project a site permit. A representative of Lakefield Wind Project requested the PUC to consider changing language in the site permit to allow some leeway in where wind towers were placed, so that a setback of 1,250 would have to be "generally maintained" but could be changed if unforeseen problems occurred. In no event would the turbines be closer than 1,000 feet.
The commission agreed to offer more leeway for property owners involved in the project but maintained the 1,250-foot setback for property owners who were not involved in the project.
Lakefield Wind Project will also need to have a protection plan in place for the area's avian and bat population, conduct a survey to confirm the wind project's impact on bats and birds is acceptable and provide a noise impact analysis once the project is up.
