Wisconsin hospital plans $10m wind power project

August 12, 2010

Minnesota-based community wind specialist Juhl Wind, Inc., is to provide a $10 million wind power facility for a teaching hospital in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

It has signed a development agreement with GL Wind, a development vehicle formed by the Gundersen Lutheran Hospital, which serves patients throughout western Wisconsin, northeast Iowa and southeastern Minnesota.

The GL Wind project is to comprise five megawatts of generating capacity, to be community-owned and operated.

Juhl has been assisting on the project since last fall, and believes construction could begun in the last few months of 2010, the wind farm completed in 2011.

GL Wind, which includes an equity partner as well as the hospital, will finance the project.

New model

Dan Juhl, CEO of Juhl Wind, said: “This project is led by a leading institution, Gundersen Lutheran, in the La Crosse, Wisconsin region and is representative of other projects we see on the horizon for our business.

“When an institution like Gundersen Lutheran makes a commitment to clean energy and to lead the development of a community wind farm, it makes it so much easier to get a project financed and built. Yet again, this project is very representative of a new model for our small-to-medium sized wind farm business,” added Mr Juhl.

Based in Woodstock, Minnesota, Juhl Wind has completed 16 wind farm projects so far.

With its acquisition of Next Generation Power Systems (“NextGen’), Juhl Wind now provides full sales and service to smaller, on-site wind and solar projects in addition to our larger Community Wind Farms.