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Wind farms dot the landscape in states across the country, but you won’t find one in the Southeast, at least not yet, according to a wind industry trade group. That is until now.

Construction is expected to begin this year on a new $400 million, 200-plus megawatt facility in North Carolina, the first utility-scale wind energy farm in the region. But the wind farm, commissioned by Amazon, will be used exclusively for Amazon Web Services, and it won’t provide any energy for North Carolina homes or businesses.

However, the project marks the beginning of what could turn into a wave of wind industry-related construction across the region, according to Jonas Monast, a professor at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University.

“What’s really changing things is the ability to make wind generators taller,” Monast said during an interview on “A Closer Look.”

“If you can take these wind generators, make the blades reach at a higher height, you’re more likely to access more consistent winds, and that’s what’s going to potentially change things here in the Southeast,” Monast said.

Amazon’s wind farm in North Carolina will cover more than 30 square miles when it’s finished by the end of 2016.

“It’s a major investment,” said Monast. “And the investment is taking place because it makes economic sense.”

So while this first Southeastern wind farm may be used to power a private business interest, in this case Amazon’s operations in Virginia and Ohio, it sets the stage for other wind farms to follow, possibly even here in Georgia one day soon.