Iowa Lakes Electric Cooperative (ILEC), a Touchstone Energy Cooperative member, serves over 12,000 farms, homes, businesses and industries in northwest Iowa with over 598 million kWh of electricity per year.
Recognizing the area’s rich wind resource as an innovative and cost-effective way to power two local ethanol plants, the ILEC board of directors launched a wind energy initiative in 2004. ILEC’s two wind farm projects became economically feasible in 2007 when ILEC received $43 million of financing through the Clean Renewable Energy Bond (CREB) program, which provides below market interest financing to electric cooperatives and government entities.
Seeking a total production capacity of 21 MW, ILEC contacted WindLogics in early 2008 to gain a better understanding of the wind regime at the two proposed wind farm locations. Using advanced physics-based methodologies, WindLogics assisted ILEC in quickly analyzing the wind resource at the proposed locations and designing wind turbine array layouts. Based on these results, combined with interconnection and site constructability constraints, ILEC and WindLogics collaborated to determine projected energy production and final site layouts. With this essential information in hand, ILEC was able to proceed with financing, construction and balance of plant activities to complete and commission both wind farms in April 2009.
The success of the ILEC projects marks the first time an electric cooperative designed, financed and completed a wind energy project in only 18 months. The team approach with WindLogics delivered accurate long-term predictions and satisfied due diligence requirements for turbine supply, construction/operation and financing. The completion of this 21-MW project also signifies the largest distribution electric cooperative project to date, as well as the first-ever wind project to serve local renewable fuel production.