MidAmerican Energy announces third location in Iowa for Wind XI project
The MidAmerican Energy Company recently announced plans to build a new wind farm in Iowa’s Poweshiek County, becoming the third site overall selected to participate in the company’s Wind XI project.
According to MidAmerican, the Poweshiek County wind farm will share an operations and maintenance building in Montezuma with the Prairie wind farm, which is currently under construction in the nearby Mahaska County. The remaining site, the North English wind farm, is currently under construction and has a scheduled completion date of December 2018.
“We are excited to continue development of our Wind XI project and come closer to achieving our 100% Renewable Vision,” MidAmerican President and CEO Bill Fehrman said. “The benefits of Wind XI are very clear: clean energy produced right here in Iowa, for Iowa customers, using one of Iowa’s abundant renewable resources.”
The company expects to pay approximately $137 million in county and property taxes and up to $114 million in landowner lease payments over the 40-year lifespan of the project.
Construction on the Prairie and Poweshiek County wind farms are slated to begin in 2018 and 2019, respectively. In total, the $3.6 billion Wind XI project will be comprised of up to 1,000 wind turbines and 2,000 megawatts of wind generation capacity when complete in December 2019.
According to company estimates, the project will produce $1.2 billion in economic benefits for Iowa communities as well as add thousands of jobs during the construction process and hundreds of permanent jobs once fully completed.
