Invenergy has sold Freeborn Wind, LLC, to Xcel Energy, well, Northern States Power Company – Minnesota. Sooooo, now they’ve asked the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to approve the acquisition.

On or about June 14, the day of closing, Invenergy, the developer/old owner, TERMINATED 34 leases and good neighbor agreements covering over 4,470 acres of land.

What does that mean? Well, the project, and project approval, was based on 17,435 acres of leased land, and 4,470 is over 25% of the leased land. In the contested case, it was questionable whether the project had enough land, and there’s even a notation that Invenergy was working on acquiring more land, and we were told over and over again that there wasn’t enough room to make any adjustments, to move any turbines even a little bit! So now, at 75%, can they even build this?

Meanwhile, Xcel/NSPM has said they’ll be requesting a permit amendment, because they’ll be changing 32 Vesta V116 to Vesta V120, larger turbines, longer blades (needing larger 3 and 5RD setbacks) and longer blades equals more noise. They’ve said they’ll file new noise study, shadow flicker, and site plan.

In short, the project permitted December 19, 2018 and May 10, 2019, is not the same project.

Now this is NOT the same project… there are substantive, material changes… PUC doesn’t seem to care, Commerce doesn’t seem to care…

Association of Freeborn County Landowners is trying to wake up the Commission:

Xcel/NSPM has asked for approval of the acquisition, and the Commission announced a comment period, so here we go:

And read EERA’s Comment — good grief, blinders on the wrong end of the horse:

PUC will take a look at this sometime soon, but likely the NSPM amendment request will come in, IF they file it as planned, before that, as they expected to file in July. We shall see.

Here in Red Wing, and throughout southeast Minnesota, and along the other side of the river in Wisconsin, sand has been a major issue. Many communities were dragged into this issue when an epidemic of silica sand mines, processing, and transloading facilities sprang up to support fracking for oil. Sand interests got Red Wing’s Mayor ejected when he was both Mayor and Executive Director of sand mining industry’s Minnesota Industrial Sand Council:

Mayor Egan Resigns

Sand was also an issue as Minnesota attempt at, though I’d say avoided, developing sand mining rules:

Someone explain rulemaking to the MPCA

As to sand as a resource, that’s not really been a part of the discussion in these parts. And on that note, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) has released a report:

And in the STrib: UN environment agency warns of effects of rising sand use

Check it out!

Prairie Island Nuclear Plant & Prairie Island Indian Community

Here it is, I believe this is it, the “dream” bill that’s really a nightmare, Xcel Energy’s wish list, increasing “clean” energy generation, but what is regarded as clean, that’s the primary issue for me.  For you?  Check it out:

HF1956-0

OK, now, let’s read it and figure out what they’re up to!

And GO HERE to keep track of bill’s status.

Here are the House Energy Committee members – contact all of them with your concerns!

There’s no Senate companion bill yet, and it’s getting late.

And yet another year where Xcel, errrrrr, NSP, had a lackluster peak demand.  That’s a good thing, verification that we can get along with a lot less coal and nuclear.  And it’s also good as proof that of those Certificates of Need, based on their bogus “modeling” predicting 2.49% annual increase, we could jettison how many of those projects?  How much infrastructure was built that clearly wasn’t needed, at least by their justifications? Billions, right?  How much will ratepayers be refunded given all these unnecessary projects based on bogus projections?

Here are the details:

And looking at it another way:

Here’s the primary doc — Xcel’s 2018 10-K, just search for “peak demand” and there it is:

Xcel 2018_10-K

So now can we get all that unneeded transmission yanked up and hauled to the salvage yard?

Does this solar make my house look fat?!?! Soon… coming to a new white roof on West! It looks reasonable that we can cover our annual useage, average is 465 kWhr/mo., and if we can keep Alan’s air conditioner out of the window, and figure out a heater for the mudroom during polar vortices (?)(got a panel heater, should work), it’s even lower, so NO PROBLEM! Won’t be able to get out of the $8/mo to Xcel for the privilege of getting a low bill from them, drat!

We’ve got the new roof on, so we’re ready to rock! Just have to nail down the details!

THIS is how solar should be, on every rooftop. It’s SO easy, it’s at load, DOH!  Just do it!

And then there’s this: Build a Simple Solar Air Heater.

I want one on the south side of every building in Red Wing. How hard would that be?