Xcel Invests in Wind Turbines for Landowners
MELROSE (AP) - Xcel Energy is giving a financial boost to a first-of-its-kind Minnesota project that aims to install small wind turbines on private land to produce energy for farms, businesses and rural homes.
Xcel has recommended a $1.1 million grant from its Renewable Development Fund to Gone 2 Green, a Cold Spring wind turbine supplier. The money would help cover the costs of 120-foot-high wind turbines for landowners with five acres or more in Stearns, Benton and Meeker counties.
That's smaller than the 400-foot-high turbines that occupy massive wind farms in southern Minnesota and Iowa. Gone 2 Green president and founder Charles Grell says he's purposely reaching back to an older model of generating energy where individual users generated the power they needed.