The first seven of 133 windmills started turning in early October at the Le Nordais Wind Farm, Quebec. At a cost of C$160 million, the windmills can produce 100 megawatts, enough to power 16,000 households, making it the largest such development in Canada.
“Only about four other projects in the world were built to be this size,” says Yvan Dupont, president of Axor International Inc., one of a consortium of builders. The group, which includes MEG Micon of Denmark and Japan’s Nichimen Corp, won a 25-year contract from Hydro Quebec to generate wind power at 5.4 Canadian cents a kilowatt-hour.
The largest such projects in Canada to date are in the windswept western prairie province of Alberta, which generates 21 megawatts. With Quebec accounting for more than half of Canada’s wind energy potential, Axor hopes to build more sites that can produce up to 3,000 megawatts of windpower.
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