Europe’s Largest Wind Farm Gets Approval in Sweden

In this current gold rush climate for green energy words such as “biggest” and “largest” get thrown around all the time in an effort to grab some headlines.  But this project in Sweden is big no matter how you parse it.

With 1,101 turbines it would be Europe’s biggest wind farm, and as organizers told the Norrbotten county board in the region where the project would be built, possibly the biggest in the world. It would cost 55 billion kronor or roughly $6.9 billion. It would be located in the northern part of Sweden, near Markbygden and occupy 175 square miles.

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The Swedish government still needs to sign off, and that process could take another 12 months. Construction could begin in 2.5 years and take about 10 years to complete, the company behind the project, Markbygden Vind AB, said. AFP reports that if built the farm would generate a total of eight to 12 terawatt hours of electricity per year.

Who actually wears the title of “world’s biggest wind farm” isn’t really the point. You can tap any number of projects with some sort of title. Projects of this scale are only getting built because developers have figured out there’s money to be made. As long as that’s still the case, it won’t be long before another “world’s biggest” moves into construction. There may be some vanity involved, but in the long run its going to lead to cleaner generation.

Photo credit: Bouncer1788’s Flickr Stream, via a Creative Commons License.

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