North Carolina wind farm would be first in US South

Fields in rural North Carolina are becoming an alternative energy hub as investors break ground on the South’s first big wind farm.

Political and business leaders will mark the start of construction on the industrial-scale wind power project near Elizabeth City on Tuesday. The $600 million effort is being built by Iberdrola Renewables, which is selling the power to a division of Amazon.

The wind farm could generate enough electricity to power about 60,000 homes from more than 100 turbines on towers nearly 50 stories tall.

The project is near a solar power array owned by Duke Energy that’s supplying electricity to two universities and a major hospital in Washington, D.C.

The projects are due in part to a North Carolina law requiring utilities to expand their renewable energy supplies.