By the time the Maiden Wind Farm comes online late next year, the four projects will generate about 150 average megawatts. And it's expected that will just be the start. Washington Winds Inc., whose parent company owns four similar projects farms east of San Francisco, began talking with Bonneville last year about building the Maiden Wind Farm. The project, which is being built on leased farm land, could be expanded to produce as much as 130 average megawatts. With wholesale electricity prices skyrocketing, wind power has become increasingly popular.
Wind farms are environmentally friendly and take little time to permit and build.
They don't kill nearly as many birds as earlier models do, and most importantly, they produce more power at a cheaper cost. Power produced at the Maiden Wind Farm will cost Bonneville less than 4 cents per kilowatt-hour. That beats prices from natural gas-fired plants in today's market. Washington Winds also is hoping to build a separate 50-megawatt project in the Horse Heaven Hills. Mid-Columbia sites also are valuable thanks to the web of transmission lines overhead that serve the federal hydroelectric system.