"This project will be proof-positive that wind energy works in Wisconsin. Wisconsin citizens will see for themselves how comfortably wind energy development fits in with Wisconsin's working landscapes."

The two wind turbines will be manufactured and serviced by Tacke Windpower, a German company that recently opened a production facility in Ontario. A consortium of utilities, including Wisconsin Public Service Corp., Wisconsin Electric Power Co., Wisconsin Power & Light, and Madison Gas & Electric, will own the machines.

The Tacke turbines will be mounted on 60-meter towers (197 feet), which will make this project the tallest of its kind in North America. Rated at 600 kilowatts each, the machines are over 30 times larger than any other wind generator currently operating in Wisconsin, and can in a moderate breeze produce enough electricity to power several hundred households. The turbines will be placed on the Niagara Escarpment, an uplift of land that runs through much of eastern Wisconsin.

RENEW Executive Director Michael Vickerman hailed the development, noting that the project will mark the first significant increase in renewable electricity production in Wisconsin since the mid-1980s.

"This project will be proof-positive that wind energy works in Wisconsin," Vickerman said in a press release. "Wisconsin citizens will see for themselves how comfortably wind energy development fits in with Wisconsin's working landscapes."

"Windpower provides Wisconsin residents with benefits that imported conventional energy resources like coal cannot match," Vickerman said. "Windpower is more than just a clean, sustainable energy source that can be produced locally. It is a vehicle for providing supplemental income to landowners, creating jobs and business opportunities for local residents, and keeping the energy dollars from flowing out of state."

"While the direct costs of wind energy are higher, wind energy avoids a number of environmental costs borne by taxpayers and citizens as a whole. Wind energy produced no air and solid emissions," Vickerman said. "By contrast, utility coal plants use our lungs and our lakes as dumps for all the toxic by-products they produce."

Nearly 75% of Wisconsin's electricity is generated by burning coal, while only 4% is derived from renewable energy sources. That percentage has declined steadily over the last 10 years. Hydroelectric projects account for most of the renewable electricity generated in Wisconsin.

The eastern Wisconsin utilities are installing these machines to satisfy a 1992 Public Service Commission directive requiring eastern Wisconsin utilities to demonstrate a "state of the art" wind turbine. Wisconsin utilities have been resistant to installing wind generators of their own accord, citing wind energy's higher costs as compared with new gas-fired generation. No other utility-scale wind energy projects are planned for construction at the present time.

"It's true that some of the wind farms going up, like the De Pere project and the larger ones in Minnesota, are a result of legislative and regulatory mandates," Vickerman said. "But the economic conditions are beginning to work in wind's favor. More and more utilities are recognizing that some of their customers want clean electricity, and are willing to pay for it."

"Many of us in Wisconsin would leap at the chance of buying renewable electricity if it were offered," Vickerman said. "Wisconsin utilities would be well-advised to follow the example of other utilities in the region, like Public Service of Colorado and Traverse City Light & Power in Michigan, which are providing renewable electricity options to customers who want them."