Wind Power Worldwide

Fluor Corporation, Dallas, TX has signed a contract with Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) to design and construct the 500 megawatt (MW) Greater Gabbard Offshore Wind Farm. The venture is the world's largest offshore wind farm project to move into the construction phase and will be built off the Suffolk coast of the United Kingdom. The first UK offshore wind farm to be built outside territorial waters, the project will feature 140 wind turbines each having a rated capacity of 3.6 megawatt.

In the USA, Mesa Power LLP, a T. Boone Pickens company, has placed an order with General Electric to purchase 667, 1.5 megawatt wind turbines for a Texas panhandle wind farm capable of generating 1,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 300,000 average U.S. homes. The order is part of the $2 billion first phase of the Pampa Wind Project planned by Mesa.

When all the phases of the project are completed in 2014 the Pampa Wind Project will become the world's largest wind energy project, with more than 4,000 megawatts of installed capacity, five times as big as the nation's current largest wind power project. The Pampa Wind Project will cover about 400,000 acres in the Texas Panhandle.

South Dakota is also taking advantage of the winds that blow across the prairie. Yankton, SD will become the site of a wind farm built by California-based Clipper Windpower. Clipper plans to invest $145 million in Yankton County.