Wind power to the people

(FSB Magazine) -- When we profiled DanMar & Associates in June 2003 founder Dan Juhl was helping farmers set up wind towers to generate their own electricity and sell power to utilities.

Since then, multinational giants have come to dominate the industry, but DanMar (danmar.us) hasn't blown away: Annual revenue for the Woodstock, Minn., company has nearly doubled, to $2.5 million.

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To keep wind-power dollars circulating in small communities and create new jobs, Juhl started Community-Based Energy Development (c-bed.org), a nonprofit that helped persuade India-based wind-power company Suzlon (suzlon.com) to build a turbine plant in Pipestone, Minn., which could create as many as 275 jobs.

C-bed also pushed laws in Minnesota and Nebraska that encourage utilities to award energy contracts with immediate payments that help farmers and small businesses profit quickly from wind investments. "We want local business owners to produce their own energy," Juhl says. "We want them to own the power."