PUC orders removal of abandoned wind turbine blades in Mower County
The state Public Utilities Commission (MPUC) met on Thursday and ordered an out-of-state wind-power developer to live up to its commitment to remove a field full of abandoned wind turbine blades in southern Minnesota.
Last month, the Minnesota Star Tribune recounted this long and sad saga. About five years ago, Xcel Energy decided to re-develop an existing 100 MW wind farm near Grand Meadow in Mower County.
The existing wind turbines were dismantled, and the used blades were dumped in a nearby field awaiting shipment to an out-of-state materials recycling facility. What followed was a four-year-long game of corporate pass-the-buck as a series of companies went out of business.
The local utility (Xcel Energy) contracted with the Florida-based developer NextEra Energy to rebuild the wind farm. NextEra hired Spain-based Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy to recycle the blades.
Siemens Gamesa then hired Ohio-based RiverCap Ventures (now defunct) for the job. Now RiverCap’s successor, Canvus, is reportedly defunct. Canvus’ successor, Noblewins, apparently disavows the project.
The Star Tribune reports on the apparent end game:
Xcel Energy owns the wind farm after buying it from NextEra, but Xcel said it couldn’t step in because it didn’t own the discarded turbine blades. NextEra said Thursday it doesn’t have title to them either.
But provided it has permission from the owners of the lot, NextEra says it can start moving the blades by Oct. 5, either to a more suitable waystation in Kansas or to a recycling facility in Missouri.
KARE 11 TV reports that the more than 100 blades must be removed by December 15. A written order from the Commission is not yet available.
Fingers crossed!
While I’m here an update on Nantucket Island’s (MA) Vineyard wind turbine blade crisis of 2024. Earlier this year, an off-shore wind turbine failed, sending jagged chunks of fiberglass from a broken blade onto the exclusive island’s beaches. The Nantucket Current reports,
Vineyard Wind is the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm, but the project remains suspended by the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which is conducting a “comprehensive and independent investigation into the causes and factors contributing to the incident.”
There is a limerick in there somewhere.