American energy company MidAmerican Energy Company is set to launch a line of wind energy projects totaling 1,050MW with an investment of $1.9bn.
The projects are planned for the state of Iowa, US by the end of 2015, providing the state government additional tax revenues of $360m over next 30 years.
Iowa lieutenant governor Kim Reynolds stated that the government is keen to work over the proposal with the MidAmerican which has been a longstanding partner of the state.
“In addition to helping boost our state and local economies, the expansion would create approximately 460 construction jobs over a two-year period and an estimated 48 permanent jobs in our state,” noted Reynolds.
MidAmerican Energy president and CEO Bill Fehrman remarked: “The proposed wind expansion will not only add to MidAmerican Energy’s and Iowa’s position as a national leader in wind generation capacity, it will help reduce future rates to our customers by as much as $10 million per year and further enhance our corporate principle of environmental respect by reducing our carbon footprint by 10.3 percent.”
Meanwhile, the projects are estimated to feature 656 new wind turbines. With the completion of these projects, MidAmerican will own and operate approximately 3,335 megawatts of wind generation capacity in Iowa by year-end 2015.