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The Dahlheimers installed a wind turbine outside their rural Alexandria home, hoping to greatly reduce their dependence on purchased electricity.
"We just wanted to be self-sufficient," Lynne Dahlheimer said as she walked across her backyard on a windy afternoon, the nearby windmill blades rotating steadily. "We're kind of energy conservationists."
By using the windmill, their October electric expense was knocked down to $32 - less than half of normal.
The Dahlheimers also have encountered stumbling blocks. The windmill system, which cost more than $15,000, only operates at 35 percent capacity, though its efficiency is improving, and a problem with the bearings recently idled the generator atop a 65-foot-tall tower.
Like the Dahlheimers, Minnesota renewable energy advocates see great opportunity in wind-generated electricity, but the state struggles to reach that goal.
A new state energy standard requires most utilities to derive a quarter of their electricity production from renewable sources - including wind, solar and hydroelectric generation - by 2025. The state's dominate utility, Xcel Energy, has a tougher mandate.
State officials expect most of renewable electricity to be wind generated.
The state's wind could produce enough electricity to power hundreds of thousands of homes. At the same time, plant-based energy - such as turning wood and crop waste into electricity - is being touted as another home-grown energy source.
But efforts to increase Minnesota's use of wind energy face an inconvenient reality: The state lacks enough transmission lines to move the new electricity from wind turbines to customers.
"We see that problem," Deputy Commerce Commissioner Ed Garvey said.
Also, while wind-generated electricity is more than half of Minnesota's renewable energy, even supporters acknowledge it only works when the wind is blowing, so other energy sources still are needed.
"I would hope that over time on the baseload energy mix that we could reduce the coal part of that, at least the old coal, and move into clean coal, move into wind, move into solar, move into bio-thermal and the like," Gov. Tim Pawlenty said in an interview.
Minnesota ranks fifth in the country in wind-produced electricity.
The greatest amount of wind-generated energy comes from southwestern Minnesota. Hundreds of large wind turbines dot Buffalo Ridge, where Xcel draws most of its wind-generated power.
Other large wind projects are coming online as well. Earlier this month, the 137-turbine Fenton Wind Project was dedicated in Chandler, northwest of Worthington.
New transmission lines will deliver wind-generated electricity to the Twin Cities area, but more are needed if wind power expands to near its potential.
There are plans to add transmission lines around the state, which supporters say could be used for wind-generated energy, but in some cases they are part of controversial coal-fed power plant projects.
Five utility companies want to build a coal-fired power plant just across the Minnesota border in South Dakota. While Minnesota regulators do not have jurisdiction over the proposed Big Stone II plant, they must decide whether to approve transmission lines to move the electricity from Big Stone and southwest Minnesota's wind generators.
Public Utilities Commission Chairman LeRoy Koppendrayer said that Minnesota needs to build electric transmission lines even if Big Stone II does not happen, but some say it will take a big plant like Big Stone to fund new lines.
Smaller, community-based projects have shown wind-generated energy can be a viable alternative. The University of Minnesota-Morris, considered a leader in renewable energy efforts, relies on a wind turbine for half the campus' electricity.
Morris plans to add another turbine to further increase its renewable energy use. However, wind turbine manufacturers are experiencing a growing demand for large projects, so smaller-scale projects such as Morris' face difficulty finding a manufacturer to fill an order for just one unit.
"If you're not asking for 10 wind turbines, they don't really want to deal with you much," said Joel Tallaksen of the university's West Central Research and Outreach Center in Morris.
There are other ways companies are looking to generate electricity to meet growing power demands in the region:
A proposed Iron Range plant would convert coal to gas, which Excelsior Energy says would be a cleaner way of using the fossil fuel, but it is opposed by environmentalists.
Fibrominn, in western Minnesota's Benson, burns turkey litter to generate electricity.
In the northwest, Northern Excellence Seed, which deals with grass seed, plans to turn 2 million pounds of waste into gas, which would be burned to produce electricity.
Money from Minnesota State University, Moorhead, student fees is going to erect a wind turbine on campus, while the city utility operates two others.
Todd Reubold, assistant director of the University of Minnesota-based Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment, said researchers are looking into innovative projects such as putting miniature turbines in flowing rivers to produce electricity as well as massive batteries around Buffalo Ridge to store electricity.
Also under consideration is using electricity produced by wind to make hydrogen, which could be stored and used as an energy source as needed.
Minnesota companies, researchers and elected officials are optimistic about the path toward renewable energy but are encountering challenges along the way.
And the Dahlheimers in Alexandria, who envision someday not paying an electric bill, still are fine-tuning their small wind turbine.
"It's not producing up to par yet," Lynne Dahlheimer said.
Scott Wente and Don Davis work for Forum Communications Co., which owns the Bemidji Pioneer.
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