With their organic gardens and ample land, Andy and Jessie Welsh had the perfect plan. Living in rural Stearns County, the young couple had hoped to be energy self-sufficient and green. ...From the start, the installation was delayed and marked by setbacks. Electricians had a hard time getting the turbine wired to run properly. When it finally did, the turbine ran for just a few days before they received a call from the company instructing them to shut it down.

He said that people don't realize that a wind farm is constant maintenance, and to ensure longevity, preventative maintenance is needed. ..."Wind energy is not the complete answer to our energy needs," McNeilus said. "It is a piece of the pie, but you still have to have the whole pie, because there are days when the wind doesn't blow."

The 10 wind turbines at the Taconite Ridge wind farm will probably still be motionless until early February, a company spokesperson said Thursday. Nine of the ten wind turbines now are having repairs done to blades, instead of just five, that was reported earlier. The completion date for repairs has been pushed back from mid-January, said Amy Rutledge, Minnesota Power communications manager.

When it came time to start repairing a wind turbine at the ethanol plant on Oct. 15, the project had to be put on hold. ..."The blade has been cracked all summer. It's been frustrating," says Dan Moore, director of project development for Renewable Energy Solutions. When the broken blade was discovered, the turbine furthest from the ethanol plant had to be shut down. All three blades needed to be replaced, says Moore, because we couldn't find one to match the other two.

It's not just a lack of wind as the reason why some of those wind turbines in the Taconite Ridge wind farm aren't turning. Half of the 10 machines had to be turned off. After a recent routine maintenance check, it was found that five of them had non-structural defects in some of the blades. The affected turbines were shut down and are awaiting repairs, which are expected to go through the end of the year, Amy Rutledge, Minnesota Power communications manager, said Friday.