A proposed wind farm in southern Idaho could become one of the largest in the nation.
The Lava Ridge Wind Project is shooting for a 1,000-megawatt wind farm, which would double the state鈥檚 current wind energy production. Wind energy already made up about 15% of Idaho鈥檚 total energy generation in 2018, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Project makers expect at least some of that energy to be sent to out of Idaho.
鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing this as a great opportunity to have a project be another industrial export for Idaho and be able to serve customers outside of the state,鈥� said Luke Papez, who鈥檚 managing the project for LS Power, the company behind .
Papez hopes construction will start in 2022, after getting approvals and holding public meetings. That may be an ambitious timeline considering how long it鈥檚 taken other wind farms in the region to clear regulatory hurdles, such as the proposed 3,000-megawatt Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project in southern Wyoming, which has been in the works for more than a decade and is scheduled to be completed by 2026.
Lava Ridge Wind Project would be on Bureau of Land Management lands in Jerome, Lincoln and Minidoka counties, and is expected to create hundreds of construction jobs and 20 full-time jobs.
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