Energy Transition in Rural America (May 2022) - Wilton Wind Energy Center

By Gabe Chan

On May 19th, our class visited the Wilton Wind Energy Center outside of Wilton, ND as our final stop of the day. The Wilton Wind Energy Center and adjacent Baldwin Wind Energy Center provide more than 200 megawatts of power to the Basin Electric system. The Wilton 1, 2 and Baldwin Wind Energy Centers are owned by NextEra, one of the largest for-profit renewable energy developers in the country. NextEra is owned by the utility Florida Power & Light. Basin Electric purchases all of the power from the Wilton 1, 2, and Baldwin Wind Energy Centers under a long-term power purchase agreement. This arrangement is financially beneficial to Basin Electric because as a not-for-profit entity, Basin does not have a sufficient tax appetite to be able to monetize the federal incentives for wind energy provided by the production tax credit. As a private company, NextEra is able to monetize the incentive credits and pass through much of the savings in their power purchase agreement with Basin. Currently, Basin has over 1,700 MW of wind energy (representing nearly one-quarter of its power mix), much of it procured through power purchase agreements. 

During our tour, Angela Magstadt, staff writer/editor with Basin Electric, hopped onto our bus and guided us through the Wilton project. We went down several gravel roads that connected the wind turbines through farm and grazing lands. Apparently, the cows near Wilton love to scratch themselves on the towers of the turbines! Angela explained to us how NextEra had recently undertaken a repowering initiative with the Wilton and Baldwin projects, upgrading much of the technology of the turbines to increase output.

We were able to drive our bus close to one of the turbines in the middle of the project and do our best impression of the wind turbines popping up all over North Dakota to provide clean energy to rural electric cooperatives like Basin.