One award is for construction of the Las Majadas Wind Farm in Willacy County, southern Texas. This is an approximate 272-MW project that is expected to provide enough energy to power up to 77,000 average Texas homes. Vestas will supply 125 V120-2.2MW turbines for the Las Majadas wind project. The power generated by the project will be delivered into the Texas electrical grid.
Construction on the Las Majadas project is scheduled to begin in July with full operation by October 2020.
The second award is for construction of the Coyote Wind Farm in Scurry County, Texas, which is about 260 miles west of Dallas. This is an approximate 242-MW project which will feature 48 SG 4.5-145 and 11 SWT-2.3-108 wind turbines from Siemens Gamesa. The wind farm is anticipated to power up to 65,500 homes. The power generated by Coyote Wind will also be delivered into the Texas electrical grid.
Construction on Coyote Wind is slated to begin in July and finish in September 2020.
EDF Renewables North America is the lead developer on both projects. The company’s North American portfolio consists of 16 GW of developed projects and 10 GW under service contracts. EDF Renewables North America is a subsidiary of EDF Renewables, the dedicated renewable energy affiliate of the EDF Group.
The scope of IEA’s work on both Las Majadas and Coyote Wind will include wind turbine installation, public road maintenance and repairs, turbine access roads and MV collection system installation.
“Both of these projects exemplify the robust demand for clean energy, including wind projects, that we are seeing in 2019,” said JP Roehm, IEA’s Chief Executive Officer. “The shift to renewable energy across North America is an enduring movement that will drive large and important construction projects for many years to come.”
The U.S. wind power industry increased its overall capacity by eight percent in 2018 to 96,433 megawatts. That more than doubled the capacity level at the start of this decade and is enough to power more than 30 million homes, according to American Wind Energy Association data.
Additionally, as the cost of developing renewable energy continues to decline, new-build wind capacity is projected to become cost-competitive with existing conventional energy plants in the next decade, according to a 2019 McKinsey & Company analysis. As such, McKinsey forecasts continued growth in renewable energy investments, including wind, for several years.
