Power company Caithness Energy has given General Electric a $1.4 billion contract to supply wind turbines and 10 years' worth of maintenance for an Oregon wind farm, GE announced Thursday.

The massive 845-megawatt wind farm, Shepherds Flat, will be located near Arlington, Oregon, but span approximately 30 square miles and cover parts of Oregon's Gilliam and Morrow Counties.

The two-year construction project will kick off in 2010, with GE set to book most of the revenues throughout 2011 and 2012 as it installs the turbines. The turbines will be built at GE’s production facility in Florida, a fact seen as one of the reasons it won the contract.

The contract, the third largest ever booked by GE’s wind division in revenue terms, underscores GE’s rapid shift towards environmental and infrastructural products and services. GE’s wind division has hiked its revenue tenfold since being acquired from Enron in 2002, reaching more than $6bn in 2008.

Shepherd’s Flat will flow an estimated two billion kilowatt hours of green electricity each year into a grid owned by utility Southern California Edison, which will then be distributed across the west coast.

GE Energy Financial Services is investing an undisclosed amount into the project.

It will generate enough power to supply 235,000 average California homes and spare the atmosphere 1.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year. The project entails the construction of 85 miles of road and 90 miles of power lines to link it to the grid.

If the full project is built out, Shepherd’s Flat will surpass the world’s current largest wind farm in Roscoe, Texas, which was brought on line in early 2009 by the North American division of E.ON Climate & Renewables. GE contributed turbines to the 781.5MW project, along with competitors Siemens and Mitsubishi.

Source: GE

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