Pampa Wind Project

Mesa Power, a company controlled by former Texas oilman, T. Boone Pickens, is planning to build the world's largest wind farm, called the Pampa Wind Project, as part of the Pickens Plan. The proposed 4,000 MW facility will be located near Pampa, Texas, which is on the Texas Panhandle, and will stretch to the east, spanning 400,000 acre in five counties. This will provide enough power for 1.5 million average homes. Mesa Power has placed an order for the first shipment of 667 wind turbines from General Electric— the world's largest wind turbine order for a single location— and this will provide 1,000 MW of wind power capacity for the $2 billion first phase of the project, which should be online by 2011. [ [http://www.genewscenter.com/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=3601&NewsAreaID=2 Mesa Power places world’s largest single-site wind turbine purchase order] ] [ [http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1394347/pickens_bets_2_billion_on_wind_power_project/ Pickens Bets $2 Billion on Wind Power Project] ] Lease payments for the land used by the turbines are expected to cost $65 million a year. The total cost of the project is estimated at $8-10 billion.

By way of comparison, as of May 2008, the largest U.S. wind plant is the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center with a capacity of 736 MW.

On July 17, 2008, the Texas Public Utilities Commission approved ratepayer funding of $4.98 billion in electric transmission lines to connect wind farms in the Texas Panhandle to the electric grid. [cite news |url=http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/20/business/19wind.php |first=Kate |last=Galbraith |date=2008-07-20 |title=Texas approves a $4.93 billion wind-power project |work=International Herold Tribune |quote=Transmission companies will pay the upfront costs of the project. They will recoup the money from power users, at a rate of about $4 a month for residential customers.] This implements the provisions of a 2005 Texas law designed to promote new wind energy projects. [http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2008/2008-07-18-094.asp Retrieved 2008-09-14.]

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