Green Glossary: Wind Farm - Planet Green

This lyrical?even magical?term evokes images of children's book or sci-fi books but a wind farm is "a cluster of wind turbines (up to several hundred) set up in areas where there is a nearly steady prevalent wind, either on land or offshore." In our increasingly green society, the idea of wind farm may appear "modern" but I have one word for you: windmills. In fact a "gang" of windmills still stands in the Netherlands (southeast of Rotterdam) and was in use until the 1950s.

As for a more modern usage, there's news of a massive wind farm being constructed in Kenya. Matthew McDermott of TreeHugger explains: "Planned to be built in stages, with each of the project?s 360 turbines coming online as it is installed, the wind farm will start initial production in June 2011 and reach full capacity in 2012. Total costs for the project are expected to be about $760 million, 30% of which will be financed by the African Development Bank. Though the plan is to stop at 300 MW, a company spokesperson indicated that the possibility of expanding it once sufficient transmission capacity is in place is being investigated."