A Salt Lake City company is looking to develop a wind farm near Manila capable of generating power for an estimated 40,000 homes.

RAAM Power Inc. saw its project gain valuable support last Monday when the Utah Geological Survey placed an anemometer on the Daggett County property the company holds the rights to.

“That has particular significance because the state only had six (anemometers) to place this time around,” said R.S. Cutler, an advisor to RAAM Power's board of directors. “The data will be unimpeachable because it will be state data, not our data.”

The anemometer will measure wind speed over time to help company officials assess the best locations for at least 50 planned wind towers. Cutler said the typical time frame for collecting significant information is 12 to 18 month, however, RAAM already has data collected from an existing anemometer in Manila.

“It's our anticipation that we'll have meaningful data within six to eight months,” he said, noting that over the next several months the company will place additional anemometers on the property to get an idea of what the wind patterns are like.

“We'll also have wind engineers walk the property and their provide opinions,” Cutler said. “Based upon that, we will decide where we'll place the turbines.”

Cutler said the first phase of the project could produce up to 100 megawatts, enough to provide power to 40,000 homes. The company is still working to secure all of the funding it needs to move forward.

“We have the resource,” Cutler said. “The resource is the wind and the power it can generate. To bring that resource to fruition to use we have to have capital and we have to have organization. We have the organization.”

RAAM's choice of Daggett County as a potential project site is the result of personal experience by one of the company's officers. Cutler said the man worked for the Utah Department of Transportation in the county and was responsible for road maintenance. He had frequent experience with the wind-driven snow that creates massive drifts in the area each winter.

“The possibility up there is just unbelievable,” Cutler said, adding that flagging – when vegetation on the ground is all bent one direction from the wind – in Daggett County is unlike any company officials have seen anywhere else in the nation.

“What we suspect, what we're starting to think, is that there is a wind tunnel along the north slope of the Uintas and we're right in the heart of it,” he said.

In addition to building the wind farm Cutler said there will be a need to build a transmission system that ties into the electrical power grid. He said both the build-out of the project and the operation of the permanent facility will create a “tremendous amount of jobs and support a lot of families” in Daggett County.

Cutler estimated that up to 200 people could be employed during the construction of the project, which is expected to take several years to complete. Then RAAM would employee 20 full-time workers once the wind farm is finished.

“These will be good jobs, which is huge for Daggett County,” Cutler said.