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Milford • The company that operates Utah's largest wind farm is expanding with a second phase of towers.
First Wind celebrated the growth of its Milford Wind Corridor project Wednesday — a rare windless day — at the site eight miles north of Milford in southwestern Utah's Beaver County.
The Boston-based company said it has begun construction on 68 new towers whose turbines are powered by blades turned by winds funneled between two mountain ranges. That's in addition to the 97 towers that were built in Phase 1.
When the second phase is complete, First Wind will have invested about $400 million in the project.
Each of the turbines in the new phase will generate 1.5 megawatts of electricity. Together, the 68 towers will be able to supply power to 22,000 homes in Southern California, where the electricity is sold. When combined with the project's first phase, the wind farm will generate enough electricity to power 65,000 homes.
The electricity travels along an 88-mile line to a Rocky Mountain Power station in Delta, then along transmission lines to the Los Angeles area.
Since the project went online in 2009, First Wind officials calculate the company has provided $51 million in economic benefits to surrounding communities and more than 60 Utah businesses that were involved in development and construction. In the next 20 years, it projects $31 million in additional benefits.
The latest phase will provide about 200 construction jobs and boost permanent operational jobs to more than 18.
David Hastings, the company's vice president for development, said First Wind can build additional phases as demand dictates.
Milford Mayor Bryan Sherwood described First Wind and RMT, the Madison, Wis.-based construction company that is building the towers, as good neighbors. First Wind supplied fireworks last year for the Fourth of July festivities when the town couldn't afford them, and RMT helped remove downed trees after windstorms.
"The wind does blow here," Sherwood joked, as the towers' turbines were motionless.
Among the speakers at Wednesday's event was Curt Whittaker, whose Beaver County family was instrumental in persuading First Wind to build the facility near Milford.
Whittaker, who now lives in Concord, N.H., said since graduating with a law degree from Harvard in the early 1980s, he has focused his practice on helping develop renewable-energy projects. When wind turbines started becoming a serious contender in the 1990s, he was thinking of production sites, and his mother asked, "Why not Milford?"
The family formed a company and, in conjunction with students at Milford High School, began collecting information on wind frequency and speed in Milford and acquiring land and permits for a major wind operation. The investment paid off earlier this decade, when Whittaker approached First Wind and traded the data, land and lease permits to First Wind for a share of the company.
Whittaker's mother, Iona Whittaker, who now lives outside Austin, Texas, but still visits Milford frequently, said she lived in the town through high school and remembers the wind was always blowing.
"It was hard to walk against while going to school," she said.