Aug. 17--SHARON, N.D. -- On Rick Thompson's farm, which straddles the Pembina Escarpment at about 1,500 feet above sea level, nearly constant wind whips the golden heads of hard red spring wheat as if they're pacing impatiently in midair, waiting for the impending late-summer harvest.

"I raise wheat and corn and beans, and I've got wind," said the farmer who lives between Sharon and Aneta, N.D.

Wind. It's long been a four-letter word on the Northern Plains, and especially along ridges that rise above the fertile valleys of the Sheyenne and other rivers in North Dakota.

So, about a decade ago, when a few friends and neighbors in Steele and Griggs counties started talking about how to harness that wind to produce energy, Thompson jumped right in.

"Intellectually, yes. Cash wise? No," he said.

On the horizon

At the time, wind energy essentially was an undeveloped industry, with only a smattering of small wind farms around the country.

Nonetheless, Thompson, Keith Monson and Orville Tranby, rural Cooperstown, N.D., and Keith Jacobson, rural Hope, N.D., pressed on, spending hours talking about how they might turn wind into a cash crop.

Now, their first wind energy harvest is on the horizon.

On Aug. 25, the North Dakota Public Service Commission likely will approve a permit for the Luverne Wind Farm, North Dakota's first large-scale community-owned wind farm.

The farm is owned by M-Power LLC, a locally owned wind resource development company. Its mission is to develop wind generation and associated renewable energy projects that will provide landowners and local investors a chance to share in the profits.

Approval pending

Last week, Otter Tail Power Co. became M-Power's first customer, agreeing to purchase 49.5 megawatts of electricity from Luverne Wind Farm, to be located on 32 sections of land in Steele and Griggs counties in east-central North Dakota.

The wind farm will have a capacity of 157.5 megawatts.

Pending PSC approval, construction of the $315 million wind farm will start this fall. The project is divided into two parts: a 33-turbine farm that will produce the 49.5 megawatts for Otter Tail and an adjacent 108-megawatt farm that will follow.

Company officials hope both will be in operation by late 2009, according to Warren Enyart, M-Power board secretary.

Enyart said M-Power still is negotiating the remaining 108 megawatts of power that will be available once the Luverne Wind Farm becomes operational.

Otter Tail also has a stake, along with Minnkota Power Cooperative, in a 60-mile-long, 230-kilovolt electric transmission line that will be built between Luverne, in southwestern Steele County, to the Maple River Substation near West Fargo, N.D.

"We've been at this for about 10 years now," said Monson, M-Power president. "This is a significant achievement for us, especially to be able to strike a deal with a local utility."

'Something

for ourselves'

The road has been long and winding, with economic and political winds blowing in many directions along the way.

While early discussions about a wind farm took place in 1998, the project really got started in 1999, when local economic boosters organized the Griggs-Steele Wind Development Group, which set up wind-monitoring towers around the region, trying to find the best place for a wind farm.