Red Wing’s Xcel biomass facility celebrates 75th anniversary
February 3, 2025
Xcel Energy’s biomass burning facility in Red Wing celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2024 and nearly 40 years of burning refuse derived fuel (RDF).
The facility, located off of Fifth Street in Red Wing, began as a coal-fired energy generating facility in the 1940s until it was converted into a RDF burning facility in 1986. Garbage from Ramsey and Washington Counties, as well as the City of Red Wing and surrounding Goodhue County, is sorted for recyclables in the municipalities and at a facility in Newport before it is burned on-site to create electricity.
Leon Lenertz, the plant manager who has been at the facility for 16 years, said they receive and burn about 800 tons – or 40 semitruck trailer loads – a day and have burned an average of approximately 230,000 tons per year the last several years. The facility operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week for about 330 days of the year with it being closed for maintenance the other few weeks.