The Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council gave its approval of the site of a wind farm billed to be the largest in the world.

The Shepherd's Flat Wind Farm, which would span Gilliam and Morrow counties in north-central Oregon, is proposed to have 303 wind turbines with a peak capacity of 909 megawatts -- instantly doubling the state's current wind-generated capacity of 889 megawatts, making it the largest wind farms in the country.

"This is a tremendous day for renewable energy in Oregon," Michael Grainey, director of the Oregon Department of Energy, said in a news release.

The project is being developed by Caithness Shepherds Flat, LLC of Sacramento, Calif., which says Shepherds Flat will be the largest single wind farm in the world.

Currently, the largest operating wind farm in the United States is Horse Hollow in Texas at 736 MW. Texas oil and gas magnate T. Boone Pickens has plans to build a wind farm in Texas by 2014 that would reach 4,000 MW.

The Shepherd's Flat project area is between highways 19 and 74 on privately owned land, about five miles southeast of Arlington. The power output of the facility would enter the Federal Columbia River Transmission System through Bonneville Power Administration's Slatt Substation.

Other renewable energy projects currently under review by the Oregon Department of Energy include the 400 MW Golden Hills Wind Farm in Sherman County and the 143 MW Newberry Geothermal Project in Deschutes County.