Chicago-based Invenergy Wind will build a farm equipped with 125 giant wind turbines on o surface of about 30,000 acre in Gratiot County, Michigan.

Being considered Michigan’s largest, the $440 million project will produce 200 megawatts of energy by the end of next year, enough to supply electricity for more than 54,000 homes.

“You add all these things together, it’s just a good thing for us. We’re a rural community. We don’t have a lot of industry here,” said second generation farmer Jeffrey J. Baxter, 44, whose family will have six of the giant windmills towering over 1,700 acres of corn and dry beans in Bethany Township.

The company will begin construction after Nov. 1, hiring about 15 permanent maintenance employees and 150 temporary construction workers. DTE Energy has already signed a 20-year lease to purchase $1.1 billion worth of electricity when the wind farm will be ready. This way, the project will generate 4 percent of DTE Energy’s total power.

According to Kevin E. Parzyck, Invenergy Wind senior project manager, each of the 328-foot-tall turbines will produce 1.6 megawatts of clean energy.

greenoptimistic.com