Blowing East. (Wall Street West).

Los Angeles-based PowerStar LLC, formed to build energy generating windfarms in California, found itself in the odd position of being shut out of the state's energy market at a time it was needed most.

Last year's energy disaster left the two major electric providers, Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric, unable to commit to the sort of long-term contracts PowerStar would require to start delivering its clean power.

So, with the help of L.A. lawyer Jeffrey Chester, a partner at Kaye Scholer LLP, the company headed east, where it will build a $300 million windfarm in the southern Nevada desert. (Since the neighboring states are on the same power grid, some of that energy might yet find its way back to the Golden State.)

Project funding came from FPL Energy Inc., a deregulated arm of Florida Power & Light, from Entergy Inc., a Louisiana power industry investment house, and other sources.

One of the PowerStar principals is T. Boone Pickens, of the Texas-based Mesa Group. "It is recognized worldwide that utility-scale windfarms will play and important and growing role in our energy future," said Pickens, a longtime player in the oil patch. PowerStar LLC plans more windfarms in the United States.

Contributing columnist Benjamin Mark Cole writes about the local investment community for the Los Angeles Business Journal. His new book is "The Pied Pipers of Wall Street: How Analysts Sell You Down the River," published by Bloomberg Press. He can be reached at [e-mail].