Wind energy company opens Galva office
To help develop Knox and Henry county turbine projects
Friday, March 16, 2007
GALVA - Invenergy Wind LLC opened an office in downtown Galva last week to help develop two Illinois wind projects that, once completed, will provide enough electricity to power more than 250,000 homes."Invenergy is pleased to assist Galva and Henry County in their economic development effort," said Joel Link, Director of Business Development for Invenergy Wind LLC, headquartered in Chicago. "This office will be a convenient location for our landowner partners, local officials and the public to learn more about these projects and the broad benefits of wind energy."
The office will be at 331 Market St., Suite A. Lee Pemberton, site manager of Pilot Knob Wind Energy Center, will run the office. Project site maps and brochures will be available at Invenergy's Galva office.
"The city of Galva is pleased to welcome Invenergy to town," said City Administrator David Dyer. "Wind energy is an excellent source of economic development and clean electricity, and we need both in Henry and Knox county."
The Pilot Knob Wind Energy Center is a $500 million project spread over 40,000 acres of farmland in the Knox County townships of Lynn, Ontario, Sparta and Walnut Grove. The project will be built in several phases and will be located east of Interstate 74, south of Galva and north of Galesburg. The 266 General Electric wind turbines can each produce 1.5 megawatts of power for a total project capacity of 400 megawatts.
Permitting for the project is scheduled for the fall.
The Pilot Knob project will be built directly south of the Bishop Hill Wind Energy Center. The Bishop Hill wind farm is a $550 million project that will be located across 40,000 acres of farmland in the Knox and Henry County townships of Burns, Cambridge, Clover, Galva, Ontario, Sparta, Walnut Grove and Weller. The 400 MW project is set to begin construction in the spring of 2008.
Invenergy chose the Henry and Knox county locations because of high wind readings, existing electricity transmission lines, available farmland, and willing landowner and local governmental partners.
Combined, the two wind farms will generate nearly $4 million annually in tax revenues for local county, township and school district governments. Local farmers will receive nearly $3 million annually to improve their farms and expand operations. The projects will create about 300 construction jobs, 30 ongoing jobs and an annual maintenance budget of more than $6 million.
These wind projects, once completed, will help Illinois meet its goal of generating 8 percent of its power from renewable energy sources by 2013. Illinois currently gets less than 1 percent of its electricity from renewable sources.
Invenergy is a Chicago-based company actively developing wind projects in more than 20 states, Canada and Europe. Invenergy currently has 680 MW of wind energy projects in operation or under construction, with total capital costs of more than $1 billion.
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