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Utility-scale wind power in Arizona began in 2009 with the commissioning of the first phase of the Dry Lake Wind Power Project in Navajo County.
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Wind farms
Dry Lake Wind Power Project in Navajo County is Arizona's first utility-scale wind farm. Phase 1 consists of 30 Suzlon 2.1 MW wind turbines, for a total nameplate capacity of 63 MW. Iberdrola Renewables built the wind farm for $100 million, and sells the output to Salt River Project.
As of 2012, BP Wind Energy of North America proposes building the Mohave County Wind Farm project comprising up to 258 wind turbines on federally managed lands in Mohave County. The site – about 49,000 acres of public land – is in the White Hills area about 40 miles northwest of Kingman and 20 miles southeast of Hoover Dam. The project should have up to 500 MW of capacity and construction may be in phases. Transmission lines are planned to connect to existing Western Area Power Administration lines.
Small-scale wind power
Flagstaff is the home of Southwest Windpower.
The ASU School of Sustainability in Tempe, Arizona features an array of small wind turbines on its roof, with real-time data available to the public through the ASU Campus Metabolism web site.
Environmental impact
According to the USDOE, each 1000 MW of wind power capacity installed in Arizona will annually save 818 million gallons of water and eliminate 2.0 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
For comparison, Arizona emitted a total of 101,510,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2007.