MELROSE, Minn. — Xcel Energy is giving a financial boost to a first-of-its-kind Minnesota project that aims to install small wind turbines on private land to produce energy for farms, businesses and rural homes.

The St. Cloud Times reported Tuesday that Xcel has recommended a $1.1 million grant from its Renewable Development Fund to Gone 2 Green, a Cold Spring wind turbine supplier (http://on.sctimes.com/154209k). The money would help cover the costs of 120-foot-high wind turbines for landowners with five acres or more in Stearns, Benton and Meeker counties.

That's smaller than the 400-foot-high turbines that occupy massive wind farms in southern Minnesota and Iowa. Gone 2 Green president and founder Charles Grell says he's purposely reaching back to an older model of generating energy where individual users generated the power they needed. The turbines could be connected to the electrical grid so that excess energy could be used elsewhere, Grell said.

Landowners who want turbines would still have to pay a share of the cost, but Xcel's grant would reduce the amount and shorten the payback period.

"It would be just nice to see a small project like this get started here in the state of Minnesota," Grell said. He predicted a future where "every rural home in Minnesota could be producing its own power."

So far, Grell has installed 16 turbines around the state including in Melrose, Princeton and Starbuck. Different sites have varying results, he said, "but no matter how you look at it, it's still clean energy."

Xcel's Renewable Development Fund was created as part of a 1994 compromise in exchange for permission to store spent fuel at its Prairie Island nuclear plant. The state's Public Utilities Commission has the final say in which projects get money from the fund, and a decision is likely by November.