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The developer and the owner of a 101-megawatt wind farm in northern California said Thursday they're starting construction on the project after lining up financing from six lenders.

The Hatchet Ridge wind farm, owned by a unit of private-equity firm Riverstone Holdings LLC, will be built on a mountain ridge in Shasta County, Calif., using 44 wind turbines made by Siemens AG (SI). The project is estimated to be completed by the end of 2010, said RES Americas, which is developing the project. PG&E Corp. (PCG) unit Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has signed a 15-year contract to purchase the output from the facility.

Debt financing for the project is being provided by French banks Natixis (NTXFY, KN.FR), Credit Agricole SA's (CRARY, ACA.FR) Calyon investment-banking unit and Societe Generale SA (SCGLY); German banks Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg and WestLB AG, and U.S. bank Union Bank.

"It's a very good project and everything came together," said Mike Garland, chief executive of Pattern Energy, the Riverstone unit that owns the project. Garland noted that the Hatchet Ridge project will be the first utility-scale wind farm in California to start construction this year.

The wind farm will generate enough electricity to serve about 44,000 homes, and will create up to 200 construction jobs while the facility is being built, Pattern Energy said.

The project was previously owned by a unit of distressed Australian firm Babcock & Brown, which Riverstone Holdings bought in July and renamed Pattern Energy.

PG&E and other California utilities are required by state law to use renewable sources for a fifth of the power they sell by 2010, and a third of their retail power by 2020.

-By Cassandra Sweet, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-439-6468; cassandra.sweet@dowjones.com