South Dakota Turning Wind into Energy

Opening day of pheasant hunting in Charles Mix County closed with a different twist. Usually, our party likes to head out do do some road hunting before shutting down for the day. This year, Dan had a different idea. The idea was to check out the new wind farm that is going in just northeast of Wagner, SD.

If you have never been up close to a wind farm, it's pretty impressive. This farm is actually in 3 different counties in South Dakota. Hutchinson, Bon Homme and Charles Mix Counties.

Along the way, I stumbled on some cool facts. Like South Dakota gets nearly 24 percent of it's power from wind.  According to prairiebizmag.com,

In 2012, according to the American Wind Energy Association, South Dakota generated nearly 24 percent of its electricity from wind power, making it second in the nation in that category. Among the 13 existing wind projects in South Dakota, there are 474 wind turbines capable of generating 783 megawatts. The production capacity ranks 18th in the nation, and the association says the state “has only developed a small fraction of its strong wind resource.”

The article also stated,

We were able to check out a base that the tower sits on, stand next to the blades and in general get an up close look at the units.

What's crazy awesome about the wind farm, is the blades were built in Aberdeen and the bases built in Brandon, SD. Talk about keeping money local.

I'm sure we'll be seeing more of these towers in the future. If you live near a ridge, if the soil types are workable, you'll most likely see some soon. I personally wonder how long it will be till the Turkey Ridge area gets a hard look.

I personally like it. It's getting needed power from something that seems to always be blowing around here. The wind!

I just talked about this story on the website, and then got an email with a picture. Check it out!

Hi Curtis Boser here.
I've been hearing a lot about the wind farm on KIKN and I am working here with Frattalone companies driving water truck and your guys radio station is the only thing that gets me through the long days out here. Here is a picture I took of one of the wind Mills going up.