A new wind farm has been approved near Miller, South Dakota. Officials say it didn’t take long for this facility to get approved.
The Sweetland Wind Farm is expected to produce nearly 200 megawatts of energy. Gary Hanson is the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission Chairman. Hanson says it would take a large company to purchase that much power. Two hundred megawatts is four times what it takes to power the city of Pierre. At the beginning of the year, he says the state had enough farms to produce more than one thousand megawatts of wind energy, and he expects that number to double by the end of the year.
“With the Sweetland Wind Farm, there has been little to no opposition. When we look at support and it’s generally from a financial standpoint-we have a lot of local folks that are allowing wind farms to be placed on their property.”
Hanson says wind farms in the state have profited local communities.
“This particular wind farm is fairly close to some other wind farms. And I think the folks that have lived with wind farms for a period of time for the most part are accepting of them. I believe that’s one reason why there was so much support for this wind farm.”
He says creating wind farms can bring a couple new jobs to areas. A facility the size of Sweetland is expected to create about four jobs. Hanson says a lot of the money generated helps local economies.
“There’s quite a few millions of dollars just in the construction that goes into the economy of not just the communities, but individuals as well. And certainly the land over the long term will receive financial lease opportunities. And then school boards are interested certainly in the taxes. There’s a considerable amount that goes into the local governments and over a period of time the school boards receive pretty good share of that.”
Construction of the Sweetland Wind Farm is expected to begin after the company finds a buyer for the energy.