The Alta wind farm, in the Tehachapi-Mojave Wind Resource Area in California
The plains of Wyoming in the US could be the setting for what is being termed North America’s largest wind farm yet.
The US Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently announced that the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy facility will be a renewable energy priority project for 2012.
It will be constructed south of Rawlins in Carbon County, Wyoming, covering nearly 222,689 acres of public land. The Power Company of Wyoming (PCW) said the wind farm could have as many as 1,000 turbines that would generate a combined 2,500 megawatts (MW) of cleaner electricity for about 30 years.
Analysts are predicting that the wind farm, set to be operational by 2015, could cost between €3.1bn and €4.7bn to construct, creating green jobs for the Wyoming region in the process.
PCW said the project would produce enough electricity to power between 600,000 and 800,000 homes per year.
Right now, the largest onshore wind farm in North America is in Roscoe, Texas.
