Wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Americas has announced that it received an order for 18 V90-3.0 megawatt wind turbines to be installed on a Canadian wind plant.

The buyer — TransAlta Corp., of Calgary, Alberta — plans to expand its’ existing wind farm in New Brunswick, Canada, where 32 wind turbines were installed in 2008. TransAlta estimates the capital cost of the wind farm’s 54 MW wind turbine expansion at $100 million.

Construction will start in early 2010 and is expected to be finished by the end of the year, subject to environmental and regulatory approvals. The wind farm is expected to be in operation by the end of 2010. Once complete, the expanded wind farm should generate up to 150 megawatts of electricity, enough power to meet the needs of about 9,000 homes, according to Vestas.

According to TransAlta, the power will be sold to New Brunswick Power Distribution and Customer Service Corp. under a 25-year purchase power agreement.

Vestas opened a turbine blade manufacturing plant in Windsor, CO in March 2008. The company is building additional manufacturing plants — for turbine towers and nacelles, plus an additional blade plant — in Pueblo and Brighton, CO. Those plants are expected to open in 2010.

But wind turbine orders dropped off in 2009 as the recession and credit crisis slowed wind project development. Vestas announced in December it would shut down production at the Windsor plant — although employees would remain on the job and be paid to do other things at the plant — for a time during the first quarter 2010. Production would resume as orders for new turbines picked up, a Vestas spokesman said in December.