JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Vice President Joe Biden told a crowd at a mid-Missouri factory Thursday what Tom Carnahan hesitated to admit to himself about a Northwest Missouri wind energy project.

A $300 million, 100-turbine wind farm slated for DeKalb County “was on hold” until recently, Mr. Biden said. Banks and investors were turning away the Wind Capital Group, which has been eyeing a location six miles south of King City for its next farm, because of economic conditions.

“We never really liked to say it out loud,” said Mr. Carnahan, president/founder of Wind Capital Group, which already owns wind farms in Gentry, Atchison and Nodaway counties. “A few months ago, the banks were closed. Banks now have confidence to move forward ... The stimulus changed everything.”

Mr. Biden also credited the Federal Economic Recovery Act for spurring what could turn out as the state’s largest wind energy development, called Lost Creek.

“Clean energy, renewable energy ... where nobody has to do anything except the wind blow,” he said.

While Wind Capital Group itself didn’t receive any stimulus money, part of the package included a $14 billion investment in production tax credits aimed at restoring investor confidence. Mr. Carnahan told the News-Press that six banks on Thursday were interested in the project.

“We’re going to get companies like this windmill company to be able to move forward,” Mr. Biden said.

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke joined Mr. Biden on Thursday in Jefferson City at the ABB Transformer Factory, which will produce 100 electric transformers for the Lost Creek Wind Farm.

Mr. Locke touted the Obama administration’s support of an electrical energy grid, “a new blueprint for how electricity moves through America” that will allow users to sell back power to utility companies. Mr. Biden announced the U.S. Department of Energy will distribute $3.4 billion in Smart Energy Grid grants to help prompt their development.

“The Lost Creek Wind Farm project will be designed with Smart Grid products in mind,” Mr. Biden said of an effort to move energy from the Midwest to other parts of the country. “You’ve got to bring the power to where the people are.”

The government’s green energy push will help create jobs, like those at the DeKalb County wind farm, that won’t be exportable, Mr. Biden said.

The Missouri Senate’s Republican commerce and energy chairman, who attended the announcement, said he appreciated the vice president’s plans with the coordination of a new electrical energy grid.

“That’s where we need help,” said Sen. Brad Lager, of Savannah. “We have to do a better job of utilizing what energy we generate now.”

But Mr. Lager, whose Senate district includes DeKalb County, lacked the same enthusiasm over the stimulus money.

“It’s going to expedite what normally would’ve happened,” Mr. Lager said, praising the entrepreneurship of private business owners like Mr. Carnahan. “If we as a society are going to look to government to fix this problem, this problem being the economy, we’re in trouble.”

The Lost Creek Wind Farm will begin generating 150 megawatts of electricity in 2010 if construction begins in August, as planned, and is expected to generate more than 2,500 jobs.

Alyson E. Raletz can be reached at alysonraletz@npgco.com.