US Wind Farms Generating the Most Electricity

Located 80 miles east of Denver, the Limon Wind Energy Center was the largest wind farm in Colorado at the time of its completion in 2014. Stretching over 104,000 acres, its 368 GE turbines produce enough electricity to power 114,000 homes.

Construction of the Peñascal Wind Farm, the first to be built on the coast of Texas, began in 2008 and was completed in 2015. Early environmental assessments led to a conclusion that the farm would have negligible effect on fish and wildlife. Nevertheless, the farm has an radar system that shuts down the facility’s 269 turbines when large flocks of migrating birds are flying at times of poor visibility.

Located between two mountain ranges, the San Gorgonio Pass is essentially a wind tunnel. With reliable wind speeds between 15 and 20 miles an hour, in the early days of wind power it was viewed as a perfect location for a wind farm from a geographical point of view. Otherwise, it was not. Located near Palm Springs and Coachella, the early turbines springing up across the landscape in the 1980s were not a welcome sight. Since then, they have gained acceptance as a kind of new environmental aesthetic and as a revenue generator.

Capricorn Ridge Wind Farm in west Texas is owned and operated by a subsidiary of NextEra Wind Resources, the nation’s largest wind energy company. It is in a Competitive Renewable Energy Zone, created to bring energy from the high wind mesa regions of Texas to areas of denser population in east and central Texas, adding resiliency and reliability to the state’s challenged power grid.

The Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm was one of the first large-scale wind farms in the world. Begun in the 1980s, the farm was a trial ground for early turbines, many of which needed to be replaced early on due to design flaws. Even the replacement models were soon outdated as experience was gained and technology improved. The older turbines on the farm produce kilowatts of power, while the newer ones produce megawatts.