National Wind LLC announced last week it had received the 2009 Minnesota Environmental Initiative Green Business and Environmental Management Award.

The award recognizes National Wind’s business model of partnering with communities to build utility-scale wind farms. National Wind is currently developing 12 families of wind projects across the Midwest and Plains states, including one in the Meeker County area.

The company has more than 1,000 landowner partners and more than 1,300 megawatts of locally owned wind projects in development or operation in Minnesota alone.

“National Wind’s partnerships with communities are excellent examples of green business developments that help preserve the environment for future generations,” MEI Executive Director Mike Harley said. “Their grassroots wind energy projects start with local communities. By creating opportunities for community members to influence the development process and own a stake in the project, National Wind engenders broad support for clean energy and environmental stewardship.”

A key component of National Wind’s business model is joint ownership with local landowners to develop utility-scale wind farms. This arrangment is unique among utility-scale wind developers. Community-owned wind farms provide greater financial benefits to local economies than non-community owned wind projects. National Wind couples these benefits with the economies of scale achieved by utility-scale wind development.

“We have accepted this award on behalf of our 50 employees, our 450 rural farmer-partners andthe thousands of landowners that will participate in our projects,” said Leon Steinberg, CEO of National Wind LLC. “Without all of their involvement, this award would not be possible. We want to acknowledge MEI’s success in building consensus to tackle important environmental issues. We also want to thank the utility sponsors of the 2009 awards, namely Great River Energy, Xcel Energy and Minnesota Power.”