A new wind farm in Northeast Nebraska is just about operational. News Channel Nebraska was invited on a tour of the new Sholes Wind Farm near Randolph, Nebraska. Among those attending was Lieutenant Governor Mike Foley.

"It's very interesting," Foley said. "When you get up close to these wind towers, you get a better feel for the size. These are really very substantial machines." 

The wind farm has 71 turbines and will generate 160 megawatts of power once online. Foley says this is part of Nebraska’s transformation to cleaner sources of energy.

"Well we need low-cost energy, and we need clean energy, obviously to fuel our state and our factories and our homes and so forth," he said. "We know that Nebraska does have a very strong wind resource. We want to take advantage of all our resources, whether its solar, wind, nuclear, whatever we've got. We've got to take advantage of every technology."

Nebraska Farmer’s Union President John Hansen is a proponent of wind energy. He says projects like the Sholes Wind Farm bring in more tax revenue, more money to landowners and more jobs.

"For a lot of rural counties, this is the biggest door-knocking opportunity they've had in a very long time," Hansen said. 

Hansen says the union advocated for the Sholes Wind Farm, but says they also support programs and policies that ensure power companies are good neighbors to farmers.

"The thing you have to remember is that there is not one wind turbine in Nebraska on a landowner's property that the landowner didn't want there in the first place," Hansen said.

According to officials from Next Era, the operator of the wind farm, the new facility will bring about half a million dollars in tax revenue to Wayne County and about 1 million dollars a year to the landowners who had turbines installed on their land.