Acciona Energía to build second wind power plant in Texas

Acciona Energía has plans to construct its second wind farm in Texas, which will take its US wind power capacity to 866MW.

It plans to invest around $200m on Palmas Altas plant, which will have a capacity of 144.9 MW and be equipped with 46 wind turbines of Nordex.

The facility is expected to be connected to grid in November 2019.

Situated in Cameron County, close to the San Roman wind farm that Acciona commenced operations in December 2016, the new facility will produce around 524 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of clean energy per year, equivalent to the consumption of 43,000 US households.

Acciona Energy USA Global CEO Rafael Esteban said: “We are proud to undertake a new wind power project that consolidates the reactivation of our investment activity in the United States and confirms our commitment to grow in a controlled and profitable manner in a market that continues to offer very interesting opportunities for the renewables sector.”

The Palmas Altas project will employ 170 people at the peak of construction in addition to a 10-person operations team.

During its 25-year lifespan, the project is expected to generate $40m in local tax revenue, besides over $44m as lease payments to local landowners.

The project will feature Nordex’s AW125/3150 wind turbines. This model comes with a rotor diameter of 125 meters, mounted on an 87.5-meter steel tower.

The energy generated by the wind farm will be sold in the ERCOT-South Texas wholesale market.

ACCIONA Energía currently owns and operates eight wind farms in the US. Besides 93MW San Roman plant, the firm has three facilities totaling 329MW in Oklahoma, two in the Dakotas totaling 192MW, one 101MW facility in Illinois, and one 6MW facility in Iowa. It also has a 64 MW CSP plant in the Nevada Desert.