MidAmerican Energy has announced additional details about their wind expansion in Iowa as announced in earlier this year.
MidAmerican Energy recently reached an agreement with Highland Wind Energy, LLC, an Invenergy Wind LLC company, for the acquisition of the approximate 500MW Highland wind project site in O’Brien County. Agreements also were reached with EDF Renewable Energy for the acquisition of the approximate 250MW Lundgren wind project site in Webster County, and with two RPM Access, LLC companies for the acquisitions of the approximate 138.6MW Wellsburg wind project site in Grundy County and the approximate 117MW, Macksburg wind project site in Madison County. In addition, MidAmerican Energy’s existing Vienna wind farm, constructed in 2012, is being expanded by 44.6MW in Marshall County (Vienna II wind project). MidAmerican Energy has selected Siemens Energy as the turbine supplier for all project sites. All of the blades for the expansion will be manufactured at Siemens’ Fort Madison, Iowa, facility, while the nacelles will be manufactured at Siemens’ Hutchinson, Kan., facility. Siemens will provide turbines utilizing technology from its 2.3MW, G2 platform for all five projects. The contract also includes a service, maintenance and warranty agreement. The Highland, Macksburg and Wellsburg wind projects will be constructed by Mortenson Construction, which is based in Minnesota, while the Lundgren and Vienna II wind projects will be constructed by Wanzek Construction, Inc., which is based in North Dakota. Once complete, the new wind projects, which will consist of 448 wind turbines.