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SHOSHONE — A massive wind farm, Idaho’s largest, could break ground in the Magic Valley in 2022.

The final size and cost for the Lava Ridge Wind Project isn’t yet known, but the wind farm could be up to 1,000 megawatts with a price tag in the $1 billion range. At 1,000 MW and with hundreds of turbines, the wind farm wouldn’t just be Idaho’s largest, it would be among the biggest in the world.

“We’re in the early stages of this,” Magic Valley Energy Project Manager Luke Papez said. “(The specifics are) going to get worked out in the siting process.”

Magic Valley Energy will own Lava Ridge. The company is an affiliate of LS Power, an energy generation and transmission company with projects throughout the U.S. This will be LS Power’s first Idaho wind farm.

“It’s an exciting development for us,” Papez said.

The wind farm will be on a vast area of Bureau of Land Management land in parts of Jerome, Lincoln and Minidoka counties, mostly south of Idaho Highway 24. Shoshone and Dietrich are the only cities that will be relatively close to the project. The sheer amount of land, and the proximity of that land to major transmission lines, made this an attractive site for a wind farm, Papez said.