During a media-invite only event Wednesday, officials from Xcel Energy and enXco Development Corporation predicted that all 67 turbines in Mower County’s newest wind farm should be up and running by late December.

Representatives of local and metro media were taken to turbine 126 to watch as the final portions of the tower were erected just east of Grand Meadow. So far, 37 wind turbines have been erected already.

“By the end of the year is what our hope is, when all 67 will be ready to run,” said Nathan Svoboda, plant manager for the Grand Meadow wind farm.

Construction on the wind farm began on May 23 when permits cleared with crews coming into cut roads the day after.

The project is actually one of two parts enXco is part of. They also own land to the north of Interstate 90 that was the original plan calling for double the size.

“Originally, the concept was a 200 megawatt site with 132 turbines,” enXco owners representative Warren Grieves said. “Xcel wanted to buy 67 turbines. It’s actually going to be two projects.”

The other group of turbines is going to Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency. Work for the second site is slated to begin in September, and they are also looking at a similar end date as the first site.

“Both are set to be finished by Dec. 31,” Grieves said. “And we have a very good shot at doing that.”

The progression of Xcel’s site seems to echo that. So far the work has only had to stop one day for wind, called a “wind-out day,” when winds are more than 26 mph, putting wind speeds over safety guidelines.

The wet spring suffered throughout the area did little to impede the project as well.

“The wet spring didn’t hamper us,” Grieves said. “We have 16 square miles or more. Pretty much all the time there was somewhere to work. We have a lot of places to work.”

Grieves even compared a very large and often times lumbering operation to something a little more graceful.

“It’s almost like a ballet when they are erecting a tower,” he said.

Wednesday was a perfect example of that. Just as crews were beginning to lift the giant rotor into place, they discovered a crack in one of the hub panels.

Work progressed on replacing the panel even as the large nacelle, which sits atop the tower housing the generator and gears of the tower, was being lifted into place. This came after an earlier, computer-related issue with the crane.

But it doesn’t take away how much time it takes to erect even one tower. On a good day, the three sections of the tower, nacelle and rotor can take roughly around three hours.

The large crane used to hoist the pieces together can take between three and six hours alone just to break down, move between towers and reassemble again at the next tower.

Each turbine is a General Electric Wind 1.5 megawatt SLE turbine. The entire farm will put out 100.5 megawatts.

When the farm begins operation, it will be providing about 3,000 megawatts of the between 5,000 and 6,000 megawatts total in renewable resources for the state that meets Minnesota’s Renewable Energy Standard.

The RES requires Xcel to supply 30 percent of retail sales from renewable resources by 2020, 25 percent of which must be wind.