Pickens Puts Billions into Wind Power
Mesa Power, a renewable energy company founded by billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, placed an order for 667 wind turbines from General Electric Co. as part of a $2 billion startup of what is slated to become the world’s largest wind farm.
“You find an oilfield, it peaks and starts declining, and you’ve got to find another one to replace it,” Pickens said in a statement. “With wind, there’s no decline curve.”
Mesa plans to install the turbines in the Texas Panhandle, a sparsely populated region that the company said is a “logical location” for wind-generated power. Electricity produced by the turbines is expected to come online by early 2011.
The entire four-phase project is forecast for completion in 2014. It will eventually have 4,000 megawatts of capacity.
The turbines can each produce 1.5 megawatts of electricity. That makes the project’s first phase capable of producing a total of 1,000 megawatts, or enough energy to power more than 300,000 average U.S. homes, the company said.
