Wind turbines | Wikimedia Commons
Wind turbines | Wikimedia Commons
The state of Iowa could soon be home to as many as 85 new wind turbines beginning as early as this year.
Virginia-based company Apex Clean Energy recently made plans for the development headed for the central Iowa area.
“We are working towards having a buildable project in Boone and Hamilton counties,” company spokeswoman Holly McCoy-Nelson told Radio Iowa. “They’re in the Stratford area and south, and then north of Boone.”
Although she said the process would be slow, McCoy-Nelson added the company is now actively working to apply to get energy onto the grid.
"We’ve had some delays with that but we would hope to permit this in Boone County, where they have zoning and a permit process, in the first quarter of 2020," McCoy-Nelson said.
Altogether, the development is expected to provide energy to nearly 80,000 homes, and the company is already working with landowners, community leaders and various stakeholders in the area.
“They’ll start some of the construction in 2021 and then may have to finish in 2022 depending on whether we can get our power out and onto the grid,” McCoy-Nelson said.
The company estimates that the construction project will generate up to 200 jobs and another 15 to 20 full-time local positions for operation and maintenance of the wind farm.
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