More wind power for Dodge County?

Yet another wind energy farm could be realized within Dodge County by 2018, provided the project advances beyond its current preliminary planning stages, which were outlined at the Dodge County Commissioners board meeting on Nov. 22.
During the meeting, representatives from Juno Beach, Fla.-based NextEra Energy Resources, LLC., presented their plan for an 89-turbine wind farm likely to be located somewhere south of Highway 14.
More detailed information regarding the project was made available during an open house event hosted by NextEra at the American Legion Thursday evening, Dec. 8, in Claremont, Minn.
The open house, which saw fairly robust attendance by Dodge County residents—both curious and concerned about the project—was at the same time informational yet still somewhat vague.
Because the proposed project is still in its preliminary phase, and is largely contingent on securing landowner approval, exact geographic details as to where the proposed 89 wind turbines would be placed is necessarily nebulous at this point.
The project map shown at the open house covers a large swath of southern Dodge County, with the northern border roughly skirting Highway 14, Highway 30 to the South, just past Hayfield to the East and the Dodge County/Steele County border to the West.
The proposed NextEra boundaries overlap existing wind turbine installations, since wind energy farms are already a common Dodge County feature. Large wind turbines dot the landscape along Highway 14 from about Dodge Center straight on to the Steele County border.
“This is just a preliminary focus area,” stressed Jamie Gentile, NextEra’s community development manager. “Things may change due to any number of constraints. This map outlines where we’ve determined the best wind resources exist.”
Those constraints, or “setbacks” as they’re referred to, can include non-participating landowners, existing roads, transmission lines, waterways, public and private airstrips, and general geographic and infrastructure construction deterrents. All of these setbacks will gradually winnow down the