Wind production increases in 2020

Four wind production companies operating in Rock County in 2020 will pay taxes totaling $792,327, according to information at the March 2 commissioners’ meeting.
That’s about $58,032 higher than 2019 ($734,295) but down $104,102 from the high of $896,429 collected in 2015.
The county will keep 80 percent of the tax, payable May 15, with the remaining 20 percent divided among the townships where the wind energy was produced.
The 2020 tax includes the two Rock County Wind Fuel turbines that came online last year to supply electricity to the Agri-Energy plant west of Luverne. The two towers generated $4,656 in taxes.
Prairie Rose Wind, whose 114 turbines operate near Hardwick, pays the largest tax amount (785,579).
Of the production tax collected in 2020, Rock County receives $633,862.
Commissioners have earmarked the tax money for repaying bonds taken out for a portion of the countywide broadband project and two other bonds for highway department equipment, and highway improvements.
For the first time this year, Luverne Township will receive a portion of the production tax ($931).
However, Beaver Creek Township will receive no tax for the first time in nine years due to the seven turbines north of Beaver Creek deemed nonoperational.
They will be decommissioned as part of the planned Walleye Wind Farm by developer NextEra Energy.
Four townships receiving a portion of the tax include:
• Martin, $418
• Rose Dell, $60,733
• Springwater, $11,883
• Denver, $84,499
 
Several years of no levy for Denver Township
Since 2013 Denver Township has received just over $695,000 in production taxes, the most of any of the county’s 12 townships.
For the past eight to nine years, township officials have not increased the local township tax levy, instead using production tax for road improvements and equipment purchases.
They also seek building a maintenance/meeting hall, which the township currently doesn’t own. Township officials meet in the city offices in Hardwick.
Last August, Denver Township officials met with the Hardwick City Council about a joint project to build a multi-purpose building that could include a new fire hall.
Plans, however, have been stymied.
“The problem we are running into is the logistics of it — one building for everything,” said township official Kyle Hemme. “It’s a fairly large building and the problem is space.”
No public property is available for the building in Hardwick. Talks with private landowners haven’t yielded any ideal locations.
Both entities agree to continue to work together.
“We are still in talks with the city,” Hemme said.