The Public Service Commission has approved a new wind farm for Morton County, north of Glen Ullin.
Longspur Wind is being developed by Minnesota Power. It’s a 202.5 megawatt farm, and it will consist of four and a half megawatt turbines.
All three commissioners voted for it. But Commission president Randy Christmann had some concerns. One was about the size of the individual turbines.
"These are much larger than what we have now," Christmann said. "These, I believe, will be 638 feet high, well over 100 feet higher than anything else that has been built in North Dakota."
Christmann also said as the turbines get larger, the investment grows larger.
"When people start pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a project, once they start pouring that money in, they want it done and operational, and getting return on their investment, Christmann said. "So it just seems like the scramble to hurry and get done almost overtakes everything else."
Christmann said that causes backlash from people living in the area, which comes to the PSC.
Also, Christmann said in this case, Minnesota Power filed a number of revised documents just before the public hearing. He said he didn’t have time to review them before that hearing. But he says it appears that there were no substantial changes to the proposal.
"But I will say, in the future, if any company that applies for siting comes in with such voluminous new information, in a very short time before a hearing, I will insist, to the best of one person's ability, to have another, fresh public hearing, after a reasonable period of time and a public notice, so that the public has the opportunity to review that information and comment on it. Otherwise, the whole public comment thing just doesn't really work."
The project has a $780 million price tag. The PSC also approved a new, short transmission line that will connect the wind farm with a substation in Mercer County, at a cost of $10.9 million.
The power goes to Minnesota.
