Powering with Wind
MRES and our member communities are uniquely situated to take advantage of wind because of our geographical location. In a few short years, we've gone from no wind resources to an energy portfolio with nearly 84 MW dedicated to clean, renewable wind. In fact, about 4% of the energy we supply to our members will be derived from non-hydroelectric renewable resources.
MRES currently has four wind projects in its renewable energy portfolio. We built our first wind farm in 2002 near Worthington, Minnesota, that consisted of two 900-kilowatt turbines. In 2003, we added two 950-kilowatt turbines at the same site.
In 2007, we signed an agreement with wind developers to purchase the output from an 18.9-MW wind project near Marshall, Minnesota, and a 21-MW project near Odin, Minnesota. We eventually purchased the Marshall Wind Farm in April 2020.
MRES also contracts for 40 MW of capacity from the Rugby Wind Project, a large wind farm located near Rugby, North Dakota.