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Anyone can gain profits of wind

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Total cost of the South Dakota project is $23 million, with $16 million needing to be raised among investors. Basin Electric Power Cooperative will build, operate and buy the power from the project.

Basin Electric Power Cooperative - July 23, 2010

Originally published in The Argus Leader
Reported by Thom Gabrukiewicz

For a minimum $15,000 investment, any South Dakotan can be part-owner of a new, seven-turbine wind farm planned for Jerauld County.

South Dakota Wind Partners launched its investment drive Friday in Sioux Falls. The 10.5-megawatt farm will be built in the footprint of the $363 million, 151.5-megawatt PrairieWinds SD 1 farm near White Lake that will deliver electricity to North Dakota.

The rate of return on the investment will pay up to 7 percent, SDWP spokesman Brian Minish said. Investors must be South Dakota residents. Individual shares are $750.

"That's better than someone putting their money in a CD in the bank," he said. "This is a great investment for a retiree who doesn't want a lot of risk, only whether or not the wind is gong to blow in South Dakota - and we all know the wind's going to blow. And for that investment, they'll get a check every six months."

Total cost of the project is $23 million, with $16 million needing to be raised among investors, said Jim Burg, SDWP president and a member of the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council, which is a partner in SDWP along with East River Electric Power Cooperative, the South Dakota Farm Bureau Federation, the South Dakota Farmers Union.

"This is the day I've been looking forward to for 20 years now," said Burg, a former state Public Utilities Commissioner. "Through South Dakota Wind Partners, for the first time, South Dakotans have the opportunity to become personally invested within this green energy source as it continues to grow."

For several years, individual ownership opportunities for wind energy development have been hindered by the federal tax code, which provides significant tax incentives and thus favors large equity investors.

Those large investors have depended on federal production tax credits to get money, but last year's federal stimulus package opened up a tax grant of up to 30 percent of a project's cost.

And that opened up the opportunity for individual investors to be part of the burgeoning wind industry, where the investment for an average farm can run $300 million.

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