MidAmerican Energy said that construction on the 90.8MW Ivester wind farm in Iowa will begin this month in west central Grundy County.

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Image: The Ivester wind farm will feature 35 wind turbines. Photo: courtesy of 2nix/Freedigitalphotos.net.

To be equipped with 35 wind turbines from Siemens Gamesa, the Ivester wind farm will be capable of providing power for more than 38,000 average Iowa homes.

MidAmerican Energy said that the wind farm will provide nearly $875,000 in estimated average annual property taxes in Grundy County, apart from creating construction, long-term operations and maintenance jobs.

MidAmerican Energy resource development vice president Mike Fehr said: “This is an exciting year for MidAmerican Energy, as the Ivester wind farm is our latest addition that will help us increase wind generating capacity for our customers.”

The Ivester wind farm will be part of the $3.6bn Wind XI project, which is aimed to add up to 2GW of wind generation capacity in Iowa to power more than 840,000 homes in the state. Slated to be completed by 2019 end, the Wind XI project will have up to 1,000 wind turbines.

Earlier this year, MidAmerican Energy completed two wind farm projects in Iowa with a combined power generation capacity of 338MW as part of the Wind XI project. The two wind farms are the 170MW Beaver Creek and 168MW Prairie wind farms, which put together, produce enough electricity to cover more than 140,000 households in Iowa.

Recently, MidAmerican Energy announced construction of the Arbor Hill and Orient wind farms in Adair County, the Beaver Creek II wind farm in Greene County, and the North English wind farm in Poweshiek County, which are all part of the Wind XI project.

In late May, the electricity and natural gas utility announced the Wind XII project which will be a 591MW wind farm to be built with an investment of $922m in Iowa. MidAmerican is looking for potential locations in the state for the wind project, which is expected to create more than 300 full-time jobs during the construction phase and an additional 28 full-time jobs for its operations.