The governors of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware have signed a memorandum of understanding to create a formal tri-state partnership for the deployment of offshore wind energy in the Middle Atlantic region.

The parent company of Indianapolis Power & Light Co. is planning a wind farm with 200 or more towers that could become Indiana’s largest generator of the alternative energy. AES Corp. plans to build the wind turbines in a 75,000-acre area along the Clinton-Tipton county line north of Indianapolis, The Indianapolis Star reported yesterday. The project would cost up to $1 billion and mark central Indiana’s entry into the growing market.

Construction could begin by early summer on Virginia’s first wind-powered electric generation project. A spokesman for Highland New Wind Development, Frank Maisano, said yesterday that the company has filed its site plan with Highland County for the $60 million project on 220 acres. He said it’s the last step to obtaining a building permit.

Wind power is coming to Virginia. We are not sure where, or when, but signs of arrival are here. Will we also get a “smart grid?“ Virginia has two regions of satisfactory wind for powering large turbine electric generators. One is along the ridges of the mountains of western Virginia; the other is in the Chesapeake Bay and along the Eastern Shore.

Coal is central to Southwest Virginia’s past and immediate future, but another energy source is drawing attention in the central Appalachian coalfields.

Windmills off the East Coast could generate enough electricity to replace most, if not all, the coal-fired power plants in the United States, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said yesterday. But those numbers were challenged as “overly optimistic” by a coal industry group, which said half the nation’s electricity comes from coal-fired power plants.