$1 Billion Deal: BP, Sempra Combine on Projects in Pennsylvania, Kansas

Carl Levesque, AWEA
January 17, 2012 | 6 Comments

BP Wind Energy and Sempra U.S. Gas & Power announced plans to further expand their strategic relationship by jointly developing the Mehoopany Wind Farm in Pennsylvania and the Flat Ridge 2 Wind Farm in Kansas, representing a total investment of more than $1 billion.

Both wind farms, which will have a combined capacity of 560 MW, are fully contracted under long-term power purchase agreements, and are expected to be in commercial operation by the end of the year.

The 141-MW Mehoopany project, which went under construction in November, is located in Wyoming County, Pa. The power output from the wind farm has been sold under contract to Old Dominion Electric Cooperative and Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative Inc. The contracts were negotiated by the National Renewables Cooperative Organization. The wind farm will utilize 88 GE 1.6-MW wind turbines and will employ some 250 workers during peak construction. The construction contract has been awarded to Renewable Energy Systems Americas Inc.

The Flat Ridge 2 Wind farm will be located on a 66,000-acre site approximately 40 miles southwest of Wichita, Kansas. The wind farm will utilize 262 1.6-MW GE wind turbines for a total capacity of 419 MW. The output from the Flat Ridge 2 Wind Farm has been sold under contracts to Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. and Southwestern Electric Power Company, a unit of American Electric Power. A third contract has been secured but has yet to be announced.

The construction contract for the Flat Ridge 2 Wind Farm has been awarded to Blattner Energy and is expected to employ approximately 500 people on-site during the peak of construction.

BP will be the operator of both wind farms when they become commercially operational.

Carl Levesque is the communications editor at AWEA. This article first appeared in the AWEA Windletter and was reprinted with permission from the American Wind Energy Association.

6 Comments

Mortimer Shnerdlyfrump
January 19, 2012

DrAlexC that is a lot of resources. Not nearly as much as building an oil tanker or refinement factory, but enough to take a couple of years of wind (over the windmills 20-30 year lifetime) to pay back the oil and coal that were needed for construction. You couldn't be more correct that it is terrible that oil and coal need to be used in the construction of windmills. Thankfully, the windmill parts can be recycled after the windmills have played out their useful lifespan. It's also nice that much of the land they are constructed on can continue to be used for farming and grazing.

Regarding electric38, his comment made no sense as a response to your initial posting.

P.s. Dr.C, making fun of someone's name is not appropriate in a forum like this, but I've gotten used to it over the years.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 19, 2012

Electric -- maybe I'm agreeing with your elaborate irony, or just thinking that your irony means you think windmills solve something real -- inform me!

My education & experience with emissions/energy realities simply lead me now to advocate what many enviro orgs do: efficiency, local solar, and what Greenpeace & UCS now recognize as key -- safe nuclear. One day my Sierra Club may see the light & return to its former advocacy of nuclear too -- I'm working that, patiently. They already agree on the 1st 2 points above.

Ralph Perez
January 19, 2012

DrAlex,
Surely BP had no intention of polluting the entire Gulf Coast and much of the Mexico shoreline. The Mexican children that play in these waters and eat the sea food products are acceptable collateral damage. At least they will suffer and sustain physical damage enough to not want to cross the border to usurp American jobs. We need to look on the good side. This cruise ship that recently capsized in Italy had another 4200 ton of diesel fuel to dump into those beaches. These Italian children should be looked at in the same way. Collateral damage, pure and simple. The rich are beginning to ask where the seafood they are dining out on came from -for good reason. They can avoid to a degree the "Roots" type spittle that collaterally damages their food and drink, but now have the slight discomfort of sipping/harvesting the products that make the millions, that make their self perpetuating laws. Our best hope is that the little tykes eating the oil tainted food get to personally serve these leaders of industry and place the mints with fingers freshly pulled out of their hindquarters below their pillows.
It is slightly amusing to watch the "good ol boys" sipping spittled drink and chomping hockered hors d' oeuvres while celebrating their latest Wall Street gain.
I too, raise my glass to their achievements and pray that the spittle does not contain any traces of the AIDS virus..

Dr. A. Cannara
January 18, 2012

Thanks for the part agreement Mort -- I love that there are folks who lack gumption to use real names.
;]

On the wastefulness of windmills -- it's an old story, one anyone can understand from just reading a Siemens spec sheet, or similar....

~2 acres & 700tons of fossil-fuel-processed materials per MW peak. 1000 cubic meters of concrete, derived from quarried limestone and aggregate. The limestone must be kilned via fossil fuel. Each ton of steel requires 5 tons of coal to make (yes, must be coal), plus >100tons of water, plus all the mining, grinding, transport, road building, etc. fuels. Plus the transmission towers, rights of way, maintenance roads, controller interfaces to make up for wind's natural variability, plus grid power drain when windmills don't turn.

Then there's ongoing maintenance, insurance, ~10% transmission loss, etc. My personal favorite...
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-central/286170-wind-turbine-bursts-into-flames-as-hurricane-force-winds-hit-scotland/

And, the wind subsidy includeds 0 cleanup bond, so our '70s stuff is still with us...
http://webecoist.com/2009/05/04/10-abandoned-renewable-energy-plants/

But who cares? Just as today's wind investors get ratepayer & taxpayer handouts, so did ours in Calif. decades ago!

Mortimer Shnerdlyfrump
January 18, 2012

Wasteful windmills?!

It amazes me that such a deep level of ignorance still exists in this country.

I do though agree about the tax money going to BP. Our renewable projects should be built purely with American parts and labor, and BP should be banned from any operations in the U.S.

Dr. A. Cannara
January 18, 2012

BP gave us the oiled Gulf, now will make $ off taxpayers by taking lands for wasteful windmills -- figures!

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Carl Levesque

Carl is Editor & Publications Manager at the American Wind Energy Association, where has worked since 2006. At AWEA he oversees AWEA's online and print publications including the Wind Energy Weekly, Windpower Update, and other products....