By Emery Cowan Arizona Daily Sun
Dozens of wind turbines, their blades swooping rhythmically through the air, punctuate thousands of acres of rolling ranchland north of Williams. For three years, the spinning blades at Perrin Ranch Wind Energy Center have caught northern Arizona’s wind, turning it into power that gets shot across massive power lines onto the region’s electric grid.
Across much of the West and middle America, turbines like these are sprouting up in massive numbers. In a March report, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that wind will account for 9.8 gigawatts of the more than 20 gigawatts of utility-scale generating capacity expected to be added to the power grid this year. That’s more than natural gas and solar combined.
