Xcel Energy contracting for additional wind power, pursuing its own wind energy assets

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http://hometownsource.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2929&Itemid=29

Xcel Energy contracting for additional wind power, pursuing its own wind energy assets

Tuesday, 30 October 2007
by T.W. Budig
ECM capitol reporter

Xcel Energy is contracting for additional wind power and pursuing its own wind energy assets, looking to establish a wind farm across 12,000 acres of southern Minnesota.

Currently, about four percent of Minnesota’s energy — a little shy of 700 megawatts — is wind energy, said Xcel wind energy specialist Mark Stoering recently.

“And that’s been growing pretty steadily,” he said.

Minnesota has “very aggressive” new renewable energy standards — the states, not the federal government, are at the cutting edge of renewable energy policy, Stoering opined — and under the new standards Xcel’s portfolio is expected to be 30 per percent renewables by 2020.

A quarter of this amount is slated for wind.

“We’ve got such an appetite to meet the RPS (renewable standards) that there’s a lot of opportunity here for partnership and a lot of opportunity for different entities to play and participate in making our state’s goal successful,” said Stoering.

“And we do intend to meet the mandate and the letter of the law,” he said.

...

[NMDemDist2]

1. the envelope they sent the bill in this month bragged "Largest Renewable

Energy Producer in the US"