Story by: Brooke Bouma Kohlsdorf
Edited by: Dave Price
Minnesota is known as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes.” But if you drive through some parts of the state, you might be inclined to think there are more wind towers than bodies of water, especially in areas where farmland is flat and open.
WATCH: Why does Minnesota have so many lakes? By the way, It has more than 10,000 lakes. Geology Hub explains how glaciers led to the state’s uniqueness.
So, it comes as no surprise that wind power makes up a significant portion of this upper Midwest state’s electricity consumption. According to the Minnesota Department of Commerce, 25% of the state’s electricity now comes from wind.
RELATED: Minnesota ranks 8th in the percentage of U.S. wind energy generation (3.8%), according to Choose Energy. Texas (24.4%), Iowa (10.3%), and Oklahoma (8.0%) are the top three states. See the latest state rankings from Choose Energy here.
Here are some other facts from the Minnesota Department of Commerce about the state’s wind energy:
Wind energy provides the largest share (75%) of Minnesota’s electricity generation from renewable resources.
Wind energy produces 25% of the state’s total net generation.
Most wind farms are located on prairies in the southwest part of the state.
The U.S. Wind Turbine Database lets you see where 56,446 turbines from 1,223 projects have been built across the country. See that here.
Wind towers also provide a source of income for Minnesota landowners who have allowed them to be built on their property at the expense of giving up farming on that parcel.
A recent land auction in the southeast part of the state gives us an idea of how much money wind turbines can bring in each year. A 234.65-acre farm in Mower County, which sits along the Iowa border, sold for $2,872,116 on December 4th.
The sellers had a contract from Excel Energy that showed wind operations paid the landowner $22,585.35 in 2024. The contract is set to expire in 2048.
RELATED: A central Iowa widow has used wind turbines on her farm to retire nearly $300,000 in debt. Watch that story from CBS here.
David Bau, an educator with the University of Minnesota Extension, estimates that there are now about 1,800 turbines in the state.
He said that in 2023 Minnesota produced 4,500 megawatts of energy, and each wind tower generates between 2 and 3 megawatts. But he thinks those numbers might not increase because there isn’t yet enough infrastructure to use more energy, even if more towers are built.
“Minnesota is saturated with wind farms because we don’t have enough transition lines.”
While wind energy growth may be slowing, solar panel development is growing in Minnesota. Part of that increase is the result of legislation passed back in 2013 when Minnesota lawmakers amended the Renewable Energy Objectives Statute to include solar electricity.
It requires that by 2030, 10% of all electricity sales in Minnesota must be generated by solar energy.
The state isn’t quite there yet, but it is on its way. According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), solar electricity accounted for roughly 3% of electricity generated within Minnesota in 2023, which is up slightly from 2020.
About one-eighth of the state's renewable generation also came from solar power. More than four-fifths of the state's solar power came from utility-scale installations.
Bau said as he travels through the state visiting with farmers, he’s seeing more solar energy development on farmland. And while it can generate income for landowners, just like wind energy, it does use up land that can no longer be farmed.
However, the United States Department of Agriculture reported that the amount of rural land directly affected by wind turbines and solar farms is small compared with the amount of farmland in the United States: 424,000 acres in 2020 compared with 897 million total acres used for farmland.
That is less than 0.05%.
