Clipper and BP join wind energy arms race

The race to claim the title of world's largest wind farm gained a new frontrunner last week after turbine manufacturer Clipper Windpower and oil giant BP's alternative energy arm announced they had formed a new joint venture with a view to building a five gigawatt development in South Dakota.

The new 50:50 joint venture will take responsibility for the 5,050MW Titan wind project, which if completed would usurp oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens' planned 4,000MW Texan wind farm as the world's largest wind energy project.

James GP Dehlsen, Clipper's chairman and chief executive, said that the completed wind farm would provide enough energy to power approximately 1.5 million American homes, adding that it would also "offset nearly 24 billion pounds of carbon dioxide that would have otherwise been released into our atmosphere if produced by traditional means [according to the national energy mix]".

Under the terms of the joint venture agreement, Clipper and BP will combine their interests in a previous joint venture project that has already seen the companies begin work on a 1,550 MW farm in South Dakota. This will now be extended to add a further 3,500MW of capacity.

The deal will also see Clipper supply more than 2,000 of its 2.5MW Liberty turbines to the projects.

The venture is the latest in a series of multi-gigawatt large-scale projects that should soon see the US overtake Germany as the world's largest generator of wind energy.

Only last week Oregon gave the go-ahead for a 909MW project that should briefly hold the crown of the world's largest farm when it comes online in 2010 ahead of the UK's Thames Array project. Meanwhile, an imminent study from the American Wind Energy Association is expected to argue that while Germany still boasts greater installed capacity, the US is already generating more energy from its turbines as a result of higher average wind speeds.