Payment not guaranteed
To the Editor:
Electric de France (EdF) says the annual tax revenue generated by its proposed Oza Tanka project will be $800,000. This is not a guarantee, and will only happen if the wind blows as predicted, and the turbines generate at full capacity 34 percent of the time.
I have built a spreadsheet with real numbers to predict the actual revenue, and EdF has rounded up about 11 percent from $715,000 up to $800,000. What you need to know is the revenue is a tax on the production of .0012 dollars per kilowatt and Faribault County has no formal agreement with EdF for this money. In other words, if the turbines fall over from a tornado and cannot generate for a year until they are fixed, then the county receives zero payment from EdF.
Faribault County has an annual budget of about $25 million. The $800,000 of money that may or may not come from Oza Tonka is about only 3 percent of the budget. This money is not “free” and will drive away more families from our county, causing more stress on our school budgets, ultimately resulting in levy increases for all of us.
I urge the Faribault County commissioners to draft a formal agreement with the wind company to guarantee the $800,000 annual payment. Otherwise the payment is subject to be lost in the wind.
Dan Moore,
former wind farm developer
Blue Earth
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