Look across the vast corn and soybeans fields of southern Minnesota and you will see not only silos, groves and grain elevators, but also dozens of wind turbines slowly churning and turning.

Earlier this month, Great River Energy, an energy generation and transmission cooperative that provides wholesale electric service to 28 distribution co-ops including Meeker Cooperative Light and Power Association, broke ground on its second wind farm in southwestern Minnesota.

The Elm Creek Wind Power Project, near Trimont, Minn., will produce 99-megawatts of wind power, enough energy to power 29,000 homes a year.

It’s just one example of the way wind power is changing the Minnesota energy landscape.

By 2025, 25 percent of the state’s electricity must come from a renewable resource whether wind, solar or hydroelectric. Xcel Energy, the state’s biggest power company, faces a tougher requirement of 30 percent by 2020.

Minnesota lawmakers set the energy standard in 2007, giving Minnesota one of the most aggressive renewable energy portfolios in the country.

Read about how local power providers plan to meet Minnesota's renewable energy standard, as well as some of the challenges to increasing wind energy in the print edition of the July 31 Independent Review.