EIS-0418: Draft Environmental Impact Statement

South Dakota PrairieWinds Project; South Dakota

PrairieWinds, SD1, Incorporated (PrairieWinds) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Basin Electric Power Cooperative (Basin Electric). PrairieWinds proposes to construct, own, operate, and maintain the South Dakota PrairieWinds Project, a 151.5-megawatt (MW) nameplate capacity windpowered generation facility, including 101 General Electric 1.5-MW wind turbine generators, electrical collector lines, collector substation, transmission line, communications system, and service access roads to access wind turbine sites. Two alternative locations are being evaluated for the proposed project. One alternative is located on about 37,000 acres approximately 15 miles north of White Lake, South Dakota, within Brule, Aurora, and Jerauld counties, South Dakota. For this alternative, the requested interconnection is with Western Area Power Administration’s (Western's) electric transmission system at Wessington Springs Substation, located in Jerauld County, South Dakota. The other alternative is located on about 83,000 acres approximately eight miles south of Winner, South Dakota, entirely within Tripp County, South Dakota. For this alternative, the interconnection is with Western’s electric transmission system at Winner Substation, located in Tripp County, South Dakota. Western’s purpose and need is to respond to Basin Electric’s interconnection request under Western’s Open Access Transmission Service Tariff and make a decision whether to approve or deny the interconnection request. If the decision is to approve the request, Western’s action would include making necessary system modifications to accommodate the interconnection of the proposed project. .

For more information, see South Dakota PrairieWinds Project.