Plans in motion for Missouri's largest-ever wind farm

Matt Hoover Photo | Image Source | Getty Images

Ameren Missouri has entered into an agreement to acquire, post-construction, a 400-megawatt (MW) wind farm in northeast Missouri, the power firm said Monday.

The facility will be Missouri's biggest and will be made up of 175 American-made wind turbines.

An affiliate of renewable energy business Terra-Gen will build the wind farm in Adair and Schuyler counties, with ground-breaking on the project set for summer 2019.

The site will generate enough energy to power an estimated 120,000 homes by 2020. The service area of Ameren Missouri, a subsidiary of the Ameren Corporation, covers 64 counties.

"We are excited to take this transformative step to bring more renewable generation to our customers," Michael Moehn, Ameren Missouri's president, said in a statement. "Adding more wind energy will help us achieve our goal to reduce carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050."

The U.S. installed over 7,000 MW of wind energy capacity in 2017, according to data from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), a figure that puts it behind only China in terms of new installations.

As a whole, the wind industry added over 52 gigawatts of wind power last year, according to the GWEC.