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Nebraska’s wind industry is growing

The seventh annual Nebraska Wind and Solar Conference will take place October 29th and 30th in LaVista.

John Hansen, conference co-chair and president of Nebraska Farmers Union, says it’s an exciting time for supporters of wind energy development in Nebraska.

“We are in the middle of the largest three-year development and deployment of wind energy in our state’s history,” Hansen says.  “Two years ago we were at 459 megawatts of wind in our state, and by the end of next year we will be at 1,209.”

Hansen says many rural communities are benefitting from wind development.

“Bloomfield and Crofton, Petersburg and Elgin, Broken Bow and Table Rock–and you look around the state where these projects are, these are game-changers,” he says.  “It is a huge infusion of additional outside capital—and it’s a huge increase in the local tax base.”

And individual landowners are also benefitting, Hansen says.

“A wind turbine—if it’s a two megawatt—might mean eight to ten thousand dollars a year in additional revenue for the life of the project,” Hansen says. “Nobody’s going to get rich doing that, but that’s enough money to get on a lot of people’s radar—and it’s helpful.”

Hansen says one of the challenges facing the wind industry is the “on-again, off-again” incentives at the federal level, relative to the production tax credit.  He says it has created a lot of uncertainty among investors.

AUDIO: John Hansen