Hypothetical path presented to huge wind project at meeting

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Jared Alholinna, of CapX2020, right, speaks Tuesday at the South Dakota Wind Energy Association annual meeting in the Mitchell Technical Institute Technology Center amphitheater. (Chris Huber/Republic Photo)

Talk about it

Creating a 1,000-megawatt windpower project in South Dakota will require more than $2 billion of investment, but an assessment conducted by the South Dakota Wind Energy Association and Stuefen Research says the economic impact from the hypothetical project would be substantial.

The analysis shows that it would cost $2.19 billion to construct 1,000 megawatts of wind power capacity in Deuel County. The analysis is just that — an analysis, rather than an actual plan for a project.

According to the plan, $335 million of the total price would come from local investment, yielding a projected $538 million in total economic impact as the money makes its way through the economy, said Jared Alholinna, of CapX2020.

Besides the actual financing, perhaps the biggest challenge to the project is one that has plagued projects throughout the history of wind energy: transmission.

“We need to get this wind into the Twin Cities,” Alholinna said.

The presentation was part of the South Dakota Wind Energy Association’s annual meeting. About 150 people attended the meeting Tuesday in the amphitheater of the Mitchell Technical Institute Technology Center.

CapX2020 is part of ITC Midwest LLC, an Iowa-based electric transmission company that provides electricity to Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Missouri. ITC touts itself as the “only fully independent electric transmission company.”

Stuefen Research is a Vermillion-based LLC that has conducted previous studies on the economic impact of ethanol, wind transmission and a proposed coal-fired power plant in southeast South Dakota.

The project would require the construction of multiple transmission pathways of 345 kilovolt lines that would cover 478 miles, including 83.4 miles in South Dakota.

The South Dakota portion of the lines would cost an estimated $67.5 million. An additional investment of $1.35 billion would have to be made in the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator — or MISO — to achieve 1,000 megawatts of exported wind energy.

Deuel County was selected in the study because of its proximity to the Brookings County Substation and its wind capacity. The plan would split the 1,000 megawatts of wind into four 250 megawatt farms to, according to the study, “more closely match actual wind development where typically smaller amounts of wind generators are grouped together into several wind farms rather than fewer but larger wind farms.”

The plan would create 5,360 full- and part-time jobs during the construction of the farms.

After construction, the study estimated, 184 “green or new economy” jobs would be created. The operation is predicted to create $6.5 million in new wealth.

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