BP Steps Up Construction For Wyoming County Wind Project

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

August 1, 2012 | 1:45 PM

Scott Detrow / StateImpact Pennsylvania

A Cambria County wind turbine.

Wind turbines aren’t the first things you’d associate with BP, but the global energy giant is expanding its alternative energy operations. As the Citizens Voice reports, BP is constructing a 9,000-acre, 85-turbine wind project in Wyoming County:

BP Wind Energy pulled out all the stops Monday to announce that its 9,000-acre Mehoopany Wind Farm in Wyoming County has moved into full construction.
Although the project partnered with Sempra U.S. Gas & Power is slightly behind schedule of what was announced a year ago, John Graham, BP Wind Energy’s president and CEO, said what was going to happen by the end of the year “is good for everyone.”
“It’s good for us, our customers and the communities around them,” Graham said of the $250 million investment that has created 400 jobs to help get more than 85 windmills in the ground.
He noted that when the wind turbines are in place, there would be a continuing work force of around 15 to oversee their long-term maintenance.