MidAmerican Energy Company received approval from the Iowa Utilities Board to build up to 545MW of additional wind-powered electric generation in Iowa, USA.
The first phase of the expansion will be built in Carroll and Crawford counties in west central Iowa and is scheduled to be completed in 2006. This 99MW project, being constructed by Invenergy Wind Development Iowa LLC, will utilize 66 GE Energy 1.5MW wind turbines. The location and size of additional MidAmerican-owned and operated wind facilities have not been finalized at this time.
MidAmerican also announced that it has reached agreement with the Iowa Farmers Union to facilitate the opportunity for small community-based wind projects to sell the output of their wind projects to MidAmerican. Under the terms of the agreement, MidAmerican will purchase up to 40MW of capacity from community wind projects that are connected to MidAmerican’s electric distribution system. Each project can consist of up to 2.5MW, and up to 20MW can be connected at any one delivery point on MidAmerican’s electric distribution system.
