Powering with Wind
Missouri River Energy Services (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 88 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 has five 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.
In March 2020, we purchased the Marshall Wind Farm.
Other wind projects include the Rugby Wind Project (North Dakota) and the Hancock Wind Project (Iowa). MRES contracts for 40 MW of capacity from the Rugby Wind Project and 3.3 MW of energy from the Hancock project.