909 Megawatts of Oregon Wind Power Bought Up by Southern California Edison

photo by poppy via flickr

A few weeks back I wrote about what may be, for a little while at least, the world’s largest fully-permitted onshore wind farm, the Shepherd’s Flat Wind Farm. Located near Arlington, Oregon the farm will consist of 303 wind turbines spread over 30 square miles. It is expected to generate 2 billion kWh of electricity every year. At the time there was no word on when the facility would come online, but no longer: it is now expected that the plant will begin producing power in 2011 or 2012.

The other bit of new information on Shepherd’s Flat is that the entirety of the wind farm’s output will be bought by one utility: Southern California Edison. Announced this afternoon, SCE says it has signed a 20-year contract with DCE, an affiliate of Caithness Energy, the wind farm’s developer.

This latest news means that SCE now has contracts in place to increase its renewable energy portfolio from its current 16% to over the state-mandated 20% by 2010. SCE’s current renewable energy portfolio consists of, approximately, 62% geothermal power, 21% wind power, 5% solar and 5% biogas, 4% small-scale hydroelectric, and 3% biomass.

:: Southern California Edison

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