NJR Clean Energy Ventures, the unregulated distributed power unit of New Jersey Resources, announced that the Carroll Area Wind Farm, its second onshore wind power project, has achieved commercial operation.
The wind farm represents an investment of about $42 million and is located on 1,100 acres of rural agricultural land in Carroll County, Iowa, about 65 miles northwest of Des Moines, Iowa.
The Carroll Area Wind Farm consists of nine Siemens SWT 2.3 MW, 354-meter rotor diameter wind turbines that are 262 feet high, with a total capacity of 20 MW. The site will produce enough energy to power over 7,500 homes annually.
The project’s entire energy output, capacity benefits and renewable attributes, will be sold through a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with MidAmerican Energy, Iowa’s largest energy company. MidAmerican Energy serves about 739,000 electric customers in Iowa, Illinois and South Dakota, as well as 719,000 natural gas customers in Iowa, Illinois, South Dakota and Nebraska.
Additionally, NJRCEV expects the wind farm will qualify for federal production tax credits (PTC), which are based on a kilowatt-hour output. All PTCs generated by the Carroll Area Wind Farm will be used by NJR.
NJRCEV engaged Mortenson Construction, a construction firm with more than 124 completed wind projects to date, for the engineering, procurement and construction of the project.
