On a treeless landscape on the southern tip of Newfoundland's Burin Peninsula, construction crews and heavy-lift equipment have begun growing Newfoundland's first commercial wind farm.

Nine Vestas V90 wind turbines that will generate 27 megawatts for the island's power grid were brought in by ship from Europe and trucked to this remote location, which some say might have the best wind in North America.

"If you look at the Canadian wind atlas where the darker the colours, the higher the winds, you'll see we're pretty dark," said Greg Jones, manager of business development at Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, a provincial Crown corporation.

"Our research told us we had a world-class wind resource."

Anyone who has stood on this coast in either fair or foul weather would agree.

"The potential is for hundreds of megawatts, but we are limited to about 80 megawatts from wind generation that we can absorb on the system," said Mr. Jones. "This is an economic limit. More than 80, and we risk having to spill water at our hydro sites."

Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro did its first feasibility studies in 2002, issued a request for proposals in December 2005 and awarded the contract in 2006 to NeWind Group, a subsidiary of ENEL North America Inc., the North American division of ENEL SpA, Italy's largest power company.

The wind farm is expected to be producing power by the end of the year and to generate 100,000 megawatt-hours per year.

That's enough power for about 6,800 homes on the island.

Construction of a 27-megawatt project at Fermeuse, 100 kilometres south of St. John's, is scheduled to begin sometime this summer.

An oil-fired generating station at Holyrood, Conception Bay, is an integral part of the island's electrical system by kicking in when hydro power fluctuates or the load on the system is heavy.

Mr. Jones said that while there may be enough energy from wind to equal the output from Holyrood, it's not practical at this point because of the intermittent nature of wind and the technical role of that station on the system.

But energy from the St. Lawrence wind project has the potential to replace a lot of the fuel burned at Holyrood. Mr. Jones said that the St. Lawrence and Fermeuse projects combined will save $7 million per year, reduce oil consumption at Holyrood by 300,000 barrels per year and cut emissions by 14 per cent.

Wind energy technology has been around for many years but was not always viable. Technology and economics, however, have changed.

"The technology itself is better and much more reliable than it was a number of years ago. That, combined with the rising price of oil, makes it economically feasible." said Mr. Jones.

"That's what we are targeting here on the island, cutting the amount of oil we use."

NL Hydro has an existing wind project in Ramea, a fishing community on an island off Newfoundland's southwest coast.

The experimental site converts energy from the wind turbine to hydrogen and stores it for use during high-load times. It is then burned in the company's diesel generator.

This system reduces the burning of diesel and makes up about 10 per cent of the electricity used by the island's 750 residents, said Mr. Jones.