The North Dakota Public Service Commission has approved a waiver for a wind farm near Wishek, to allow 9 of their 92 turbines to have standard red lights, rather than the “aircraft detection lighting system.”
This affects the Badger Wind Farm, now under construction.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the turbines were too close to the Wishek airport to have the ADLS system.
Originally, the FAA was going to deny that system on 19 of the turbines.
"The FAA later reduced the number of denied turbines to nine, after discussions with Badger Wind," said Commissioner Jill Kringstad. "That allowed the 10 previously denied turbines to be constructed with ADLS, after shielding effects from 9 standard lighting turbines were taken into account."
Badger wind had testified that the denial of the waiver was expected to result in the loss of 10 additional turbine locations, reducing the total number of turbines constructed from 92 to 82.
"That would reduce the project capacity by 28 megawatts," Kringstad said. "The loss of 19 turbines would reduce payments to landowners, with 9 landowners no longer hosting any turbines, and reducing the amount of tax revenue from the project."
The commission okayed the waiver unanimously. But Kringstad said the state law and rules may need a further look.
"Speaking for myself, it's clear to me that under the law, that we have the ability to grant waivers from these requirements," Kringstad said. "But I also believe the intent of the law is not to use these waivers, and that all new development have 100 percent light mitigating technology."
Badger Wind has a power purchase agreement with MDU.
