Power’s a breeze

A giant wind farm in Utah slated to power parts of Southern California recently celebrated the first stage of its completion, according to the Environmental News Service.

First Wind, an independent North American wind-power company, is in the process of building a wind corridor in Mildford, Utah, that will generate power for the Los Angeles area. With 97 wind turbines, the first phase of the project already has the capacity to generate enough power for nearly 45,000 homes, according to Paul Gaynor, CEO of First Wind.

The project got under way when First Wind and the Southern California Public Power Authority came to a 20-year power purchase agreement in December 2007.

The Mildford Wind Corridor is the first wind-energy facility approved under the Bureau of Land Management’s Wind Energy Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for western states.