Units of E.On SE and General Electric (GE) are forming an investment partnership to own and operate Grandview Phase I, a 211 MW GE-powered wind farm under construction in the Texas Panhandle.
GE Energy Financial Services provided 50 percent of the partnership equity in the project, with the balance provided by E.On’s unit E.On Climate and Renewables North America. Financial details were not disclosed.
Located 26 miles east of Amarillo in Carson County, Grandview I will use 118 GE 1.7-100 wind turbines, which GE will service under a five-year agreement. EC&RNA is managing construction of the wind farm, expected to begin commercial operations in December. Once complete, EC&RNA will provide operations and maintenance.
The wind farm will feed power into the new Competitive Renewable Energy Zones infrastructure in Texas, using the transmission lines built to add renewable capacity in Texas. Texas is the No. 1 state in installed wind capacity with approximately 12,300 MW at the end of 2013, according to Department of Energy 2013 Year End Wind Power Capacity.
The Grandview I wind farm will generate enough electricity to power about 64,000 homes — according to Energy Environmental Protection Agency methodology — avoiding about 482,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, the equivalent of the annual emissions from about 100,000 passenger vehicles. The project will create about 250-300 construction jobs this year and 10-12 permanent in Carson County.
