North Dakota Wind Farm Sold to Meet Growing Electricity Demands

Prompted by a demand to meet growing energy demands, the Montana-Dakota Utilities Company is spending $85 million to get more electricity from wind power in North Dakota.

Montana-Dakota is buying the 48-megawatt phase two of ALLETE Clean Energy’s thunder Spirit wind farm near Hettinger, North Dakota.

“We are in need of additional energy to meet our growing demands and with the easements, interconnection to the grid and permits already in place from the first phase of Thunder Spirit wind, it makes this a great project for Montana-Dakota,” said company president and CEO Nicole Kivisto.

ALLETE built the first phase in 2014 and sold it to Montana-Dakota for $200 million. It’s not the only major project for ALLETE as it has plans to build a 106-megawatt Clean Energy One wind project in North Dakota to fulfill a power sales agreement with Xcel Energy, a firm that has power line operations in Oklahoma.