Westar Energy, Inc. will break ground Tuesday on a new wind farm project in Barber County, south of Wichita.

The Flat Ridge Wind Farm is a 100-megawatt project being developed by BP Alternative Energy North. Westar will own half of the wind farm and purchase energy from the remaining half. The project is expected to be operational by the end of 2008.

Westar is also investing in two other wind farms, one in Cloud County near Concordia, the other in Wichita County near Leoti. The utility will purchase power from the Cloud County site and own and operate the Wichita County site.

Westar is the state's largest electric utility with about 675,000 customers. It has about 6,200 megawatts of generating power.