Nimbus

Boulder, Colorado-based Scout Clean Energy plans to install a 180 MW commercial wind energy facility in the populated mountains of eastern Carroll County. The facility will be the first like it in Arkansas. Scout officials recently traveled to the region to update Carroll County officials, afterward meeting with Ozarks at Large's Jacqueline Froelich —who's been tracking the project since it first came to light early last year.

A proposed $300 million private industrial wind power plant named Nimbus, the first like it in Arkansas, is under development across 9,500 acres of mountain ridges in southeastern Carroll County. Colorado-based Scout Clean Energy plans to erect 46 giant turbines—among the tallest in the nation—on privately leased land to capture 180MW of high-altitude wind power to sell out of state. A majority of county officials welcome the new industry, but thousands of county residents do not.

The "Nimbus" wind-power project, planned for construction across a large swath of private land in eastern Carroll County, if built, will be the largest in Arkansas. As Ozarks at Large reporter Jacqueline Froelich reveals, the Colorado-based developer Scout Clean Energy is pressing for public support to countervail growing anti-wind facility sentiment.

Construction of the 9,500-acre Nimbus wind energy facility, the first like it on the Ozarks Plateau, could begin in eastern Carroll County, Arkansas as soon as next year. A team from Scout Clean Energy based in Boulder, Colorado staged two public information gatherings for the first time last month in Berryville after six years of project development drawing both support and criticism.