Dive Brief:
- MidAmerican Energy plans to expand two of its wind farms in Iowa. Pending approval from the Iowa Utilities Board, it will build 67 more wind turbines, with 162 megawatts of capacity, enough to power 48,000 homes, at two western Iowa locations.
- MidAmerican will invest add $280 million in Iowa wind to the $6 billion it has already invested. Last year, MidAmerican began construction on $1.9 billion worth of turbines in five Iowa counties.
- MidAmerican has 21 wind-energy locations in Iowa and a 3,500 megawatt installed wind capacity, enough to supply over 1 million homes. MidAmerican President/CEO William Fehrman said the Iowa-based utility is investing in wind because it helps cut customer costs and supports Iowa in achieving emissions reductions.
Dive Insight:
Iowa leads the U.S. in percentage of electricity from wind, with 24.8%. It is also third in the U.S. with an installed wind capacity of 5,177 megawatts. It has the seventh biggest U.S. wind potential. There are now 1,055 megawatts of wind capacity under construction in Iowa.
64 of the new turbines will go to a new project in southwest Iowa. The other 3 will expand an existing northwest Iowa project.
Construction will provide 200 jobs. It will start in summer 2015 and be completed by the end of the year to qualify for federal production tax credits. The utility will get no local or state financial assistance. The new project will provide at least 10 permanent full-time jobs.
Siemens USA will supply the turbines from its Iowa plant.
Iowa gets 62.3% of its electricity from coal, 24.8% from wind, 7.7% from nuclear, 3.4% from natural gas, 1.4% from hydropower, and less than 1% from other sources.
MidAmerican is a regulated utility subsidiary of Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
