Milwaukee-based We Energies has narrowed down possible locations for a substation that would receive energy from up to 90 wind turbines in Columbia County's towns of Scott and Randolph, then send the energy throughout the power grid.

Glacier Hills Wind Park is at least a year away from being built, and could be two years away from operating. It is expected to generate up to 207 megawatts, enough to power about 45,000 homes - none of them in Columbia County, because the company's electrical service area doesn't include any portion of the county.

But before the wind farm can become a reality, We Energies must decide where to put a substation.

"We don't really have a preferred site," said We Energies spokesman Barry McNulty. "But I'm sure we'll have one soon."

When the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection filed an agricultural impact statement for the substation construction, farmland owned by six different owners - all in the towns of Randolph and Scott, between Cambria and Friesland - had been under consideration.

Since the report, four of the six landowners withdrew their offers to sell their land, leaving two potential locations.

Then, a third possibility emerged when another landowner expressed interest, prompting a supplemental agricultural impact statement from the DATCP, released Monday.

McNulty said We Energies would need at least 20 acres for the substation. Ideally, he said, the land would be relatively flat, with good drainage and room for a permanent gravel road to allow trucks access to the substation.

Energy generated by the wind turbines would be carried to the substation, then transmitted via American Transmission Co. lines onto the power grid.

The land around the substation could continue to be farmed, McNulty added.

We Energies is looking to buy the substation land, but it's leasing the property for the wind turbines.

According to Walter "Doc" Musekamp, We Energies local affairs representative, the wind turbines will stand on about 90 different properties, totalling about 7,500 acres, and occupy 240 parcels of land. The company has easements for all the land it needs, he said.

The company's 1,500-page application for the wind facility - formerly called Randolph Wind Farm, now known as Glacier Hills Wind Park - was submitted in late October to the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin.

McNulty said the commission recently certified that the application was complete. Ultimately, the commission and the DATCP can decide the best substation location, he said.

Meetings for leaseholders of land to be used for Glacier Hills will be held at noon and 5 p.m. Tuesday at the Randolph Town Hall, 109 S. Madison St., Friesland.

When the PSC schedules hearings on the project, likely in the fall, they are likely to be held in or near the towns of Randolph and Scott, McNulty said. The hearings would be similar to those that the PSC held in Portage in late September, when Alliant Energy proposed building a new coal-burning plant in either Cassville or Portage. The commission ultimately rejected that plant at either location.