Florida-based FPL Energy, the nation's largest wind farm owner, is prospecting along Montana's wind-swept Rocky Mountain Front as it pursues an aggressive goal nationally of adding 10,000 megawatts of additional wind power to its portfolio.

"The short answer is, 'Yes, we are interested,' but it's going to be a long time before we would be in a position to be able to put anything on the ground, if ever," said FPL Energy spokesman Steven Stengel, of Juno Beach, Fla.

James Carney, an FPL Energy land specialist based in Bend, Ore., visited the area a month ago, when he met with landowners and elected officials in Teton and Pondera counties to gauge interest and look for available land.

He said in an interview earlier this week that he was in a hurry to secure lease agreements with landowners allowing the company to erect up to a dozen meteorological towers between Choteau and Dupuyer.

"My job is to get prospects so they can get a good selection of sites for testing of winds," Carney said.

Erection of the towers, which collect data on wind speed, direction and other weather information, does not automatically mean a wind farm will follow.

But their installation is a sign of serious interest. FPL hopes to have meteorological towers up along the Front sites within the next 35 to 40 days, before winter sets in, Carney said.

"We have aspirations to continue to grow the business, so we are looking at a number of states," Stengel said. "Montana is one of them."

He described the company's progress in the state as "barely tipping the scale" of early stage development.

The private lands FPL is prospecting span 35 miles and are adjacent to U.S. Highway 89 stretching from Choteau north to Dupuyer in Teton and Pondera counties, Carney said. Most of the land is just west of the highway, he said.

A year-and-a-half to two year's worth of wind data from the meteorological towers would be needed before proceeding, Stengel said. Even if the wind resource satisfies the company, getting the power to market would remain an obstacle because the state's power lines are about full.

"The transmission issue is a big issue, and we're trying to figure out how to solve that problem," Stengel said.

Chantel McCormick, an energy development officer for the Montana Department of Commerce's energy development office, said Gov. Brian Schweitzer recruited FPL and met with company officials in the fall of 2006.

She called news of the country's largest wind developer taking a close look at the state's wind resources encouraging.

"This just goes to show what we've known all along - Montana leads the nation in wind-energy potential," she said.

Teton County commissioner Arnold Gettel said FPL Energy's Carney stopped in Choteau to speak with commissioners about available land along the Front for wind generation.

"We gave him all the help we could," Gettel said. "We're interested in getting our tax base built up."

The commissioners are not holding their breath, however.

Three other wind developers have investigated wind projects in the county, Commissioner Joe Dellwo said.

"We've been dealing with wind farm promoters for three years, and we haven't seen anybody pour concrete yet," Dellwo said.

But FPL Energy isn't an average wind developer.

Along with Florida Power and Light, FPL Energy is a subsidiary of FPL Group, which has $15 billion in annual revenues.

FPL Energy's 5,077 megawatts of installed wind power at the conclusion of 2007 made it the largest owner and operator of wind facilities in the country. That's double the amount of energy produced by the four coal-fired generators at Montana's Colstrip.

So far in 2008, FPL has added an additional 476 megawatts of capacity in Texas, Iowa and North Dakota while another 912 megawatts is under construction, according to the American Wind Energy Association.

Last year, FPL Energy announced an aggressive goal of adding between 8,000 and 10,000 megawatts of new wind to its portfolio by 2012.

One megawatt of power is enough electricity to serve 250 to 300 homes.

"Montana is a potential new market for us," Stengel said. "It's an area we are interested in. We are talking to landowners in different parts of the state."

Currently, 9 percent of Montana's energy output is coming from wind energy but electricity from the 210-megawatt Glacier Wind Farm, owned by Spain-based NaturEner, will hit the grid later this fall. The farm is located on the border of Glacier and Toole counties north of Great Falls.

Invenergy, the owner of the Judith Gap wind farm southeast of Great Falls, also is prospecting in the Great Falls vicinity. Both Invenergy and NaturEner, in addition to Texas-based Wind Hunter, have purchased capacity on the Montana Alberta Tie Line, a proposed transmission line between Great Falls and Lethbridge, Alberta.

"Montana is definitely a hot commodity right now," FPL's Carney said.

Some owners of land along the Front, closer to the mountains, weren't interested in wind development, Carney said.

"I think they were surprised to see me," he said.

Prized for its unrivaled views and wildlife habitat, the Front is a chain of mountains along the Continental divide where the plains meet the Rocky Mountains from Highway 200 in the south to the Canadian border.

Mid-summer, FPL Energy contacted the Nature Conservancy inquiring about its interest in leasing land on the Pine Butte Swamp Preserve as part of a wind project.

"I was sort of surprised," said Dave Carr, the Nature Conservancy's program manager for the Rocky Mountain Front. "Obviously, he didn't know much either about the Front or what we were doing."

The not-for-profit has conservation easements protecting wildlife habitat up and down the Front including the 16,000-acre Pine Butte Swamp Preserve, which is 25 miles west of Choteau straddling the Teton River, in the shadow of the mountains.

FPL's focus is now farther east, closer to Highway 89, Carney said.

"I'm looking at lands that are not bound or tied to the conservation easements," Carney said.