The move comes on the heels of municipal approval Wednesday to reconfigure some portions of the Enterprise Zone - which extends east from Ottawa in La Salle County to Morris in Grundy County - to afford Top Crop a sales tax break on building materials.

Phase 2 Will consist of wind turbines near Kinsman and Verona in Highland and Vienna townships. The permit application for the Phase 2 project calls for up to 138 turbines to generate 198 megawatts of power.

Due to several factors, however, some turbines will be moved a bit from the locations shown in the original application, noted spokesman Dwight Farber of Top Crop owner Horizon Wind Energy of Houston, Texas.

"For one, we were able to add two more turbines to our original application," he said. "Another one we originally couldn't connect onto the system because the landowner had not signed up. Another turbine site we just missed in the original application."

Based on noise studies by Horizon, nine other turbine sites are being slightly relocated from those positions shown in the original application.

"It's a paper movement," Farber said. "No actual turbine structures are being moved."

Nor is it a big issue.

"It's some slight movement of turbines so we can connect them to the Enterprise Zone," he added. "As long as we stay within the Enterprise Zone, we're OK. We're not adding any footage to the zone."

To include Top Crop in the zone, the various government entities along the route must approve the original request and any changes, like slight relocation or more turbines being added to the wind farm. The Marseilles City Council gave unanimous approval to the changes during Wednesday evening's regular bi-monthly meeting.

"They're moving turbines around, adding a substation, and putting in transmission lines," Mayor Jim Trager noted.

He had no additional information on the project.

The 15-acre La Salle-Grundy Enterprise Zone is an intergovernmental agreement between the two counties, plus the municipalities of Seneca, Marseilles, and Ottawa.

Originally established at 13.5 acres, the addition two years ago of Invenergy's Grand Ridge Wind Farm in Brookfield and Grand Rapids townships south of Marseilles increased the zone to its current size.

The benefit to being located in an enterprise zone is the state sales tax break on construction materials, but not on property taxes. It is common in most cases for wind farms to be abated from the sales tax.
Grundy County Zoning Officer Heidi Miller said the Enterprise Zone is specific on the pieces of property where the turbines are to be located.

"For one reason or another, they may find later they may not be able to use some of the property," she noted.

"They drew out a skeletal map to the turbines, then something came up - waterways in the path or something - and they move a turbine from one part of the project to another. That means redrawing that place on the enterprise zone."

La Salle County Zoning Officer Mike Harstad said his county has had the same issue.

"But once they get into the final stages of construction, these changes don't occur," he said.
Research Turbine

In another development, a state-of-the-art wind turbine is to be installed by the Illinois Institute of Technology at the Grand Ridge Wind Farm.

The project is funded by an $8 million grant by the U.S. Department of Energy, noted Ryan Vanderbilt, spokesman for Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson, who announced the proposal.

"This new turbine will be added to the existing turbines there," said Vanderbilt. "The turbine is special in that it is using fonts to use research and development more efficiently."

The 1.5 megawatt research turbine will test the performance and reliability of such power generating systems, and lead to a new generation of more efficient and effective turbines.

It is not yet known when construction will begin on the research turbine. The $8 million grant is from the federal stimulus bill, and is one of three awarded across the nation in the competitive grant program.

"We have great wind power in the 11th Congressional District," Vanderbilt said. "We really do, and wind energy is an up-and-coming technology."