ALLETTE brings new wind farm online and continues work on new Oklahoma project

 

ALLETE Clean Energy, the firm building a new wind farm in southern Oklahoma announced its latest wind farm, the Glen Ullin Energy Center west of Bismarck, North Dakota has gone online. The farm is producing wind power for Xcel Energy customers in the Upper Midwest.

 

Glen Ullin Energy Center, a 106-megawatt wind facility, produces enough electricity to power about 55,650 homes from its 43 2.3- and 2.5-megawatt General Electric turbines. It will employ about 10 people during operation, and provide property tax and other business benefits to area communities and lease payments to landowners.

Glen Ullin Energy Center is the third North Dakota wind expansion project developed and built by ALLETE Clean Energy, and the first it will own and operate. It also developed the 107.5-megawatt Thunder Spirit wind farm near Hettinger and sold it to Montana-Dakota Utilities in 2015. ALLETE Clean Energy expanded Thunder Spirit to about 155 megawatts and sold the expansion to MDU in 2018.

According to recent research, ALLETE is ranked the second-largest investor in renewable energy in the U.S. and Canada as a percentage of market capitalization.

“This successful project signifies ALLETE’s commitment to continued investment in North Dakota as we increasingly focus on developing carbon-free energy solutions,” said ALLETE CEO Al Hodnik. “ALLETE sees limitless opportunities for growth, not only in North Dakota’s world-class energy resources but also across the United States. Our talented employees continue to answer the call to transform the nation’s energy landscape by working together with officials and landowners in a number of states and through agreements with Manitoba Hydro in Canada.”

ALLETE Clean Energy is working on the 80-megawatt South Peak wind site in Montana with plans to bring it online near the end of the year to sell power to NorthWestern Energy.

The company’s approximately 300-megawatt Diamond Spring wind project in Oklahoma has broken ground and will sell wind power to Walmart, Starbucks and Smithfield Foods. It is ALLETE Clean Energy’s first project to sell wind power to corporate customers, and will come online in late 2020 as the company’s largest wind site.