I’m from a very crowded part of a very crowded island, the UK has 659 people/sq mile and Greater London where I grew up has 10,600 per sq mile. Even then there is still some open space and countryside is being considered for wind farms as I write. Moving to the the Western US was quite an eye opener, much like Canada the sheer amount of wide open land not really being used in mind boggling. Arizona, where I live has 57 people per sq mile, Canada with its incredible land mass has just under 10 people per sq mile.

Such huge tracts of vacant land are rather imposing when you are not used to it and you wonder why can’t the land become our new energy future? Of course in the case of wind farms or solar farms they can quickly transform dormant land into our renewable energy base. Every time I drive to Los Angeles I always marvel at the huge wind farm that sits in the desert just north of Palm Springs. It rests in a valley between two large mountain ranges and always seems to be windy when I drive through (see there was logic in place!), as I drive and look at the turbines rotating I’m always impressed that we’re simply harnessing the energy of nature and putting it to good and clean use. No oil spills, no peak oil, no refineries and no residue – just a pipeline free series of windmills rotating.

Thus I was excited to read about the award of a brand new wind farm being built in the desert outside of Tehachapi, California. The small town sits in the high desert less than 100 miles North as the crow flies from Los Angeles. I’ve included a photo of the location below to emphasize that this is unused desert being converted to a much greater use. Now this isn’t your average wind farm, in fact it’s a monumental step forward in renewable energy. Wind turbine manufacturer Vestas has announced that order for turbines just received will help create one of the largest farms in the world.  The Danish company will manufacture 190 V90-3.0 MW turbines for the Terra-Gen Alta Wind Energy Centre. The order marks the largest ever for the company for a single site.  Phase one will be delivered later this year and the remainder will be delivered and put into the grid during the first six months of 2011.

Vision of a wind farm in the California desert

Construction will begin in October and completion is estimated by Terra Gen by July 2011. With more than 830 megawatts of generating capacity in operation and 720 megawatts under construction, Terra-Gen Power is one of the the USA’s leading renewable energy providers and is the only American company that offers electricity on a utility scale from all three major renewable energy sources: wind, solar and geothermal power. At present they operate 21 renewable energy projects in operation in six states, and more than 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity under development.

From a wide open space to a clean energy farm in a short period of time….this can be done over and over again and in North America unlike Europe the space exists to make it possible, we can’t lag behind Europe who are building the turbines out at sea due to the lack of land. The possibilities are like the space to build, almost endless.