Mandate will be fulfilled

The headline "Huge Buffalo Ridge Project in Jeopardy" grossly misleads your readers by stating that Northern States Power Co (NSP) "seeks to back out of the wind-for-nuclear-storage mandate." Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Minnesota legislature requires NSP to construct and operate, purchase, or contract to construct and operate 425 megawatts of wind generation by December 31, 2002. NSP will fulfil this mandate. With 265 MW of wind generation currently under contract, NSP is on schedule to meet this 424 MW requirement.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission also can require NSP to construct and operate, purchase, or contract to construct and operate an additional 400 MW of wind generation by December 31, 2002, subject to the resource planning and least cost planning requirements in Minnesota statutes. Our 1998-2012 Resource Plan argues that this additional 400 MW of wind generation doesn't meet the resource planning or least cost planning requirements contained in Minnesota statutes.

Your readers deserve to know that legislators, state regulators, customers, vendors and contractors can count on NSP to fulfil all requirements of the wind energy mandate.