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Though Minnesota has lost some footing as a front-running wind power state over the past several years, new and expanded wind farms under construction will increase the state's wind power capacity by 23 percent in 2011.

There are currently eight projects under construction in Minnesota -- more than any other state -- that will add 507 megawatts of wind capacity, according to year-end data from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) released recently.

That total, though, lags four other states, where many of the projects are bigger -- such as an 845-megawatt wind farm in Oregon.

Still, Minnesota's increase could power just under 200,000 homes per year. It comes after adding 396 megawatts in 2010.

That boosted the North Star State to fourth in the nation for wind power capacity in 2010. Minnesota, which had been ranked third in 2007, had slipped to sixth last year.

"Minnesota was always an early innovator into this technology," said Dan Juhl, the state's godfather of wind power and the chair and CEO of Woodstock-based Juhl Wind Inc. "Other, larger states are starting to catch up, but we have the innovative, progressive history."

Juhl's company is developing four small wind power projects in the state, totaling about 50 megawatts.

Despite the state's growth, 2010 was a rough year for wind projects nationally. The U.S. added roughly half the capacity -- about 5,100 megawatts -- that it did in 2009, with government incentives largely responsible for spurring construction.

Some of those incentives, through the federal stimulus program passed in 2009, expire in December, explaining the rush to begin construction, said Josh Gackle, regional policy manager at Wind on the Wires, a St. Paul-based wind power advocacy group.

"Wind energy is just like any other industry," said Christopher Childs, former board member of the Minnesota Renewable Energy Society and current member of its advisory committee. "It follows the market, so when the recession hit, the grants were the only reason some wind projects were still building."

Alternative energy mandates have put pressure on utilities as well. Nearly 40 states have passed some sort of renewable energy requirements, many of which begin to kick in over the next several years. Minnesota requires utilities to generate 25 percent of their electric power from renewable resources by 2025. Minneapolis-based Xcel, the state's largest utility, must meet a 30 percent threshold by 2020. Xcel is already the country's largest wind power provider, according to the AWEA.

Besides green energy, states are also motivated by green jobs. Minnesota's standard could drive another 4,000 megawatts of wind power capacity and create 900 sustained jobs, according to a 2009 report by Minnesota 2020, a new media think tank based in St. Paul. Construction of these projects could pump nearly $9 billion into Minnesota's economy during the approximately 17-year construction phase, and create enough electricity to power abouy 1 million homes, the report said.

There are still some issues with wind power, however. Large wind farms are often far from the populations they service, meaning that large, long-distance transmission lines must be built, an expensive proposition affecting property owners around the country.

Forcing the energy generated to travel such a long way can also lead to huge waste, Childs said. Wind-generated electricity can diminish anywhere from 10 to 15 percent during a long journey.

There are also health issues with wind power, particularly the constant noise and flickering shadows from massive wind turbines.

Childs said that he sympathizes with those concerns, but they should be secondary to the larger issue of climate change. Emissions from other energy-generating factories or plants are far more harmful, such as carbon dioxide or mercury pollutants from coal factories, Childs said.

"Their upfront costs of building both a coal plant and a wind farm are similar," Childs said. "But coal power becomes much more expensive in the long run. It's like buying a car: You can't just pay the one price, you end up paying for maintenance, insurance, a lot of different fees."

Minnesota's gains last year came largely from the Nobles Wind Project, a 201-megawatt wind farm developed by EnXco and owned by Xcel.

Alliant Energy plans to add some turbines to the skyline in 2011 as well, beginning construction on the other half of the 400-megawatt Bent Tree Wind Farm. After completion, the Freeborn County site will have enough energy production capacity to power up to 100,000 homes each year. The farm is owned by Wisconsin Power and Light Co., an affiliate of Alliant Energy, which bought the site in 2009.

Xcel recently pulled out of the $400 million Merricourt Wind Project in North Dakota because of extra cost and delays to protect endangered whooping cranes, which migrate through the site, and the threatened piping plover, which nest in the state. EnXco, the company intending to build the project, still is pushing ahead with planning, and has challenged Xcel's withdrawal.

The largest wind power project under construction is near Arlington, Ore. The project broke ground in 2009 and will have a capacity of 845 megawatts, enough to power 235,000 homes. The Department of Energy gave a $1.3 billion grant for the site's construction in December 2010.

Megan Nicolai is a University of Minnesota student on assignment for the Star Tribune.