Terra-Gen kicks off world's largest wind site

Once completed, Terra-Gen's 1,550 megawatt Alta Wind Energy Center in central California will dwarf current leaders E.ON Climate and Renewables' 782 MW facility in Roscoe, Texas and NextEra Energy's 736 MW Texas complex.

Backed by energy investment group ArcLight Capital, Terra-Gen hopes that the complex — using turbines from Denmark's Vestas and General Electric Co — will supply electricity to 1.1 million people starting 2011 and create more than 3,000 jobs.

The project, for which Terra-Gen has secured $1.6 billion in financing, underscores how wind energy is gaining traction as a viable power alternative.

The company said last year it had secured a 1,550 megawatt power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison, supplier to much of the nation's most populous state.

Wind power had been one of the fastest growing sources of power generation before the financial crisis, which squeezed funding. But the U.S. Treasury Department helped bankroll some 150 renewable energy projects with a portion of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, doling out at least $1.5 billion in grants for wind initiatives.

The U.S. wind industry installed more than 10,000 megawatts of capacity in 2009 — a single-year record.

Wind energy accounts for almost 2 percent of U.S. electricity generation, up from 1.3 percent a year ago, according to the American Wind Energy Association. And in 2009, wind accounted for almost half of all renewable electricity generation in the country, it said.