Dive Brief:
- NextEra Energy Resources will add $640 million to its existing $2 billion investment in Colorado wind by building the $240 million, 150 MW Carousel Wind Power Project and the $400 million, 250 MW Golden West Wind Energy Project.
- The Carousel project’s output will go to Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association under a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA). The Golden West project’s PPA is with Xcel Energy. Both projects are in construction and should be online by the end of 2015.
- A subsidiary of NextEra Energy, NextEra Energy Resources’ over 10,000 MWs of capacity makes it the biggest U.S. wind project operator. It owns and operates over 1,175 MWs of wind in seven Colorado projects.
Dive Insight:
The Carousel project will have 81 GE 1.715 MW turbines and 6 GE 1.79 MW turbines. The Golden West project will also use GE turbines.
The U.S. can up the 4.5% of its electricity obtained from wind energy to 20% by 2030 and 35% by midcentury, according to the Department of Energy's "Wind Vision" report.
The report also found that while increasing wind capacity would increase electricity prices 1% through 2030, a continuing increase through 2050 would result in 2% lower electricity prices nationally from economies of scale that would drive the installed cost of wind down.
Wind’s growth from today’s 65 GW to 35% of demand in 2050 is expected to generate, the report found, 600,000 wind industry jobs. It would transfer wealth now going to coal, natural gas, and nuclear plant owners to farmers, ranchers, and taxpayers through $1 billion in annual land lease payments, $440 million in lease payments for offshore wind, and over $3 billion in annual property tax payments.
Obstacles to wind's growth include flat electricity demand and low natural gas prices.
