DISCOVERY Wind Project Profile
Apex Clean Energy is developing Discovery Wind, a wind energy project located in rural McLean County, North Dakota. Based on transmission capacity and local wind data, Discovery Wind has the potential to generate up to 426 megawatts of homegrown McLean County energy, enough to power over 155,600 U.S. homes.
Apex is working with local landowners, community and state leaders, and various stakeholders to design a project that fits with the communities and complements the agricultural, outdoor, and energy heritage of the area. The project site has several key attributes, including:
- Verified wind resource
- Local energy expertise
- Proximity to Rainbow Energy Center and Great River Energy facilities
- Existing high-voltage transmission line with planned capacity to enable local power consumption for carbon sequestration and data center
- Minimal land use impacts
A New Economic Opportunity for McLean County
Using an innovative, community-based lease that spreads some of the financial benefits from the project more broadly among landowners, Discovery Wind will create jobs and generate an entirely new, additional source of long-term revenue for local schools, township governments, and property owners. The total direct financial impact to the communities will be in the tens millions of dollars over the life of the project, with additional indirect economic benefits to the local economy through construction and operations.
Landowners participating in the project will receive annual payments over the projected 30+ year lifespan of the wind farm, injecting millions of dollars into the local economy to support local merchants, contractors, equipment suppliers, auto dealers, and others . These payments will total nearly $100 million.
Local Economic Benefits
- Enough power for up to 155,600 U.S. homes (426 MW)
- Hundreds of jobs and significant local spending during construction
- Up to 8 full-time local jobs for operations and maintenance
- Taxpayers protected against decommissioning costs
- More than 30 years of annual revenue for local schools, landowners, county and township government services, totaling tens of millions of dollars
* Estimated payments and jobs over life of project