Mississippi Opens Its First Utility-Scale Wind Farm

“Wind energy development has long been stuck in the doldrums in the southeastern United States,” writes Maria Gallucci in an article for Canary Media, where until last month, nine states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia — had installed zero megawatts of commercial wind capacity. Mississippi has broken from those ranks, with the state officially marking the opening of its first utility-scale wind farm in mid-June.

“Wind projects have historically struggled to take off in the U.S. Southeast for a few key reasons, including political opposition and a lack of favorable state renewable energy policies,” Gallucci reports. Another reason is lower wind speeds at low altitudes, which the project offsets by using taller, more powerful turbines. “The Delta wind project is using Vestas turbines with blades that can, at their highest point, reach 692 feet — making them the tallest onshore turbines in the country.”

The 41-turbine, 184-megawatt wind project is located on 14,000 acres of farmland in the northwestern corner of the state, which will continue to produce rice, soybeans, corn, and wheat around the turbines, a practice that isn’t new to wind farms but that is currently being explored as a way to make land use for another type of renewable energy, solar, more efficient as the concerns about solar panels taking valuable farmland out of production are growing.

Gallucci reports that a portion of the power produced by the new wind farm will be purchased by Amazon, which plans to build two data center complexes in the state and is backing 30 wind and solar projects across the Southeast. Data centers are notorious for consumption of resources, including electricity and water, and that demand will only rise as the use of AI — and any future novel technologies — grows.