The second largest wind farm in the world will be constructed on King Mountain in Texas.
JUNO BEACH, Florida, US, 2001-04-09 <SolarAccess.com> FPL Energy, LLC will own and operate the 278 MW generating facility. The output will be sold to Reliant Energy of Houston, Austin Energy and Texas-New Mexico Power, and will be sufficient for 140,000 homes. The use of wind turbines will displace the emission of 20 million tons of carbon dioxide over the 20 year life of the facility. “We are pleased to be enhancing our portfolio in Texas, where demand for electricity is growing and state regulators are encouraging development of a robust wholesale market, particularly in renewable sources and clean-burning natural gas,” says president Lew Hay. The King Mountain project was developed by Renewable Energy Systems and Cielo Wind Power of Austin. RES will install the 214 turbines from Denmark’s Bonus Energy, which have a rated power of 1.3 MW each. Construction will begin immediately and the facility should be fully operational before the end of this year. “We are pleased to be a part of the team, along with Renewable Energy Systems,” adds Walter Hornaday, president of Cielo Wind Power. “Wind power is a cost-effective and environmentally sound way to generate power. “This is an exciting development for us, the largest undertaken by RES and the biggest in Texas,” says RES president Ian Mays. “It confirms our position as one of the leading wind developers in the US and demonstrates the increasing success of Renewable Energy Systems in the international wind energy market.” Of the 278 MW output, Reliant Energy will purchase 199 MW under a 15-year contract, Austin Energy will take 77 MW for ten years, and TNPC will purchase the remaining 2 MW. Cielo Wind has developed many projects, including the 107 turbine wind farm near McCamey, which previously was the largest wind farm in Texas. RES is the U.S. subsidiary of international wind energy company Renewable Energy Systems Ltd. This is the company’s fifth project in the U.S. and the third developed with Cielo. Both parties initiated the 160 MW Woodward Mountain wind farm last year, and RES also constructed the Cameron Ridge and Pacific Crest wind farms in Tehachapi, California in 1999, with total capacity of 100 MW. This new project is the largest built by RES. FPL Energy is the independent power production subsidiary of FPL Group Inc, which currently owns the 75 MW Southwest Mesa Wind Farm in the western part of Texas and is building the 160 MW Woodward Mountain wind power facility in the Midland-Odessa area. The company owns and operates power plants with a total of 4,100 MW of capacity in 12 states, and expects to have 9,000 MW in operation by 2003. Wind energy is 15 percent of its total generating capacity. It currently operates wind farms in five states, with 1,000 MW of capacity, and expects to add another 1,000 MW of wind capacity by the end of this year. In January, it announced the development of the largest wind power facility in the world, a 300 MW project along the Washington-Oregon border, south of Walla Walla. FPL Group has annual revenues of $7 billion and is one of the largest providers of electricity-related services in the United States. Its principal subsidiary is Florida Power & Light, one of the largest electric utilities with 3.9 million customers in Florida.
