A sizable wind energy project in Dickey County remains on hold, pending approval by the Minnesota Public Utility Commission.

That commission is involved because the Minnesota-based Otter Tail Power Co. plans to buy and then sell wind power made in North Dakota.

Otter Tail wants Minnesota regulators to approve its agreement to buy 75 megawatts of wind energy from a Florida wind developer and sell it exclusively to Enbridge Pipelines Inc., its largest customer.

The deal wasn't approved at the regulators' meeting Thursday and won't be for at least another month, said Janet Gonzalez, the regulators' energy unit manager.

FPL Energy, the Florida company, has leases with landowners in Dickey County and has drilled test holes for the wind turbines on leased property.

Gonzalez said Minnesota regulators have some questions about Otter Tail's exclusive sales agreement, the first of its kind in regulatory history.

She said regulators want to know how other Otter Tail ratepayers would be affected, if Enbridge gets all the wind power megawatts from the Dickey County wind farm and Otter Tail brings more expensive electricity online from a proposed new power plant in South Dakota.

Wind power is generally more expensive than power generated by coal-fired plants. The wind doesn't blow all the time, so wind energy has to be backed by a traditional baseload source, but no one knows how much power will cost from the new Big Stone II plant.

An Enbridge affiliate company will partly finance the wind farm construction.

Cris Kling, spokeswoman for Otter Tail, said Enbridge will help "backstop" the risk for the wind farm, but regulators also want to make sure other ratepayers don't bear the cost.

She said the delay won't affect construction, which wasn't targeted until 2006 anyway, partly because there's a lack of wind turbines on the market right now.

The project is being closely watched in Dickey County for different reasons.

A township board recently enacted the only zoning that would regulate how the wind farm is constructed, out of a need to protect competing wind leases.

Township board member Matt Herman said the board has been blamed for delays in the FPL project.

"There are a whole lot of reasons (for the delay)," Herman said. "It's shortsighted to lay all the blame on the work of our township board."

He likened wind development to a latter-day gold rush, as companies hustle to get contracts and take advantage of lucrative federal production tax credits.

"This (zoning) brings order to it," Herman said.

FPL Energy could not be reached for comment.