Prairie Breeze II has the capacity to generate about 73 MW of power from 20 GE 1.79-MW wind turbines.

Invenergy Wind announced the completion of construction and the start of commercial operation of its Prairie Breeze II Wind Energy Center in Antelope and Boone Counties, Nebraska. The facility officially began operating in mid-December, 2015.

Prairie Breeze II is located near the town of Elgin, approximately 100 miles northwest of the city of Lincoln. The facility has the capacity to generate approximately 73 MW of power from 20 GE 1.79-MW wind turbines. Project output will be sold to the City of Grand Island, Nebraska under a long-term Power Purchase Agreement.

“We’re pleased to begin operating the second phase of our Prairie Breeze Wind Energy Center,” said Invenergy’s Vice President of Business Development for the West Region Mick Baird. “When complete, Prairie Breeze will provide more than 300 MW of clean energy to our customers in Nebraska, a state with tremendous wind resources.”

Prairie Breeze II is the second phase of Invenergy’s Prairie Breeze Wind Energy Center. Prairie Breeze I, a 201-MW facility in Antelope and Boone Counties, began operation in 2014 and Prairie Breeze III, a 36-MW facility in Antelope County, completed financial close in the fourth quarter of 2015 and is currently under construction.

TerraForm Power will acquire approximately 90% of Prairie Breeze II and III as part of the second closing of the acquisition of wind-power plants from Invenergy announced in December. The second closing is expected to occur in the second quarter of 2016 after Prairie Breeze III commences operations.

A full-time staff of 18 Invenergy employees will operate and maintain the entire Prairie Breeze Wind Energy Center operating facility. All phases will bring significant economic benefit to the local community through job creation, and through tax revenue that will continue throughout the life of the projects.

Invenergy
www.invenergyllc.com

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Along with its new service center, all of the projects supplied by ACCIONA Windpower in Brazil incorporate the company’s 3-MW AW3000 turbine.

ACCIONA Windpower the ACCIONA Group subsidiary that designs and manufactures wind turbines, has created a Wind Power Service Center in the city of Mossoró. It will service wind farms located in northeast Brazil, where the company has signed contracts for the supply of 264 turbines totaling 792 MW overall capacity.

The center, located in one of the main cities of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, will allow the company to provide operations and maintenance services in an agile and efficient way, fulfilling its commitment to optimize after-sales service to its customers and the operation of its installations.

The new facility covers 2,000 m², including a spare parts store and another 600 m² of offices for administration, staff training, and technical support. One of the functions of the center is the remote control of the wind farms. It will be initially staffed by twelve people, and this figure is expected to double in two years’ time when all the wind farms contracted will enter service.

“The Mossoró Service Center puts us in an excellent position to provide the best after-sale service to our customers that have wind farms in the northeast of the country. It will facilitate the technical training of people in the area and will represent a major competitive advantage for our company,” says ACCIONA Windpower Brasil Director Christiano Forman.

Seven wind farms in the region
Northeast Brazil accounts for 71% of the wind turbine supply contracts signed by ACCIONA Windpower in the country (792 MW out of a total of 1,119 MW) corresponding to wind-power facilities.

One of them, Areia Branca (90 MW), is already operational. Plus, another wind farm, Sao Miguel de Gostoso (108 MW), is currently under construction. Both are owned by Voltalia and are located in Rio Grande do Norte.

Other projects for the same customer, Vila Pará (99 MW) and Vila Amazonas (93 MW), are also located in that state. The latter is under construction and the companies Chesf and Encalso also have a stake in it.

The service center at Mossoró will also provide a service to the Itarema I and II (207 MW) wind farms developed by Rio Energy in the state of Ceará, and to Lagoa do Barro-Queimada Nova (195 MW) wind complex, owned by Atlantic Energias Renováveis and Actis, in the state of Piauí.

The 3-MW turbines
All the projects supplied by ACCIONA Windpower in Brazil incorporate the three-megawatt rated capacity AW3000 turbine. It is available in different versions, with rotor diameters of 116 and 125 meters, mounted on 100- and 120-meter (hub height) concrete towers.

This turbine’s performance has demonstrated that it has adapted to the Brazilian market completely.The company has also exceeded the requirements for local contracting of parts stipulated in the FINAME regulations, which was achieved six months ahead of the January 1^st 2016 deadline.

The company has a nacelle assembly plant in Brazil (in Bahia) that also has a hub assembly section, plus a concrete tower production facility in Rio Grande do Norte. It purchases the blades and other components for the turbine in Brazil.

ACCIONA Windpower
www.acciona-windpower.com

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Billy Watts, CEO of Siemens’ Wind Service Americas.

Along with being one of the top turbine manufacturers, Siemens is also strongly committed to safety in the wind industry. In 2013, the company opened a 40,000-square-foot Wind Service Training Center in Orlando, Florida. It is one of four wind-training centers that Siemens operates globally.

In this WindTalk podcast Billy Watts, the CEO for Siemens’ Wind Service Americas, discusses the importance of fall protection and safety training, as well as having skilled turbine technicians in the wind industry.

This WindTalk podcast is brought to you by ExxonMobil.

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