Clearway Energy Group recently announced it completed a partial repower of the Ocotillo Windpower wind farm (“Ocotillo”) in Howard County, Texas.
The 55-MW wind farm will generate enough electricity each year to power more than 19,000 homes for another decade. In addition, the wind-project repower will provide an additional $2 million in property taxes to Howard County and extends landowner lease payments over the same period.
“The industry has reached a point of maturity where some of the windiest places in the country already provide clean, reliable energy for Americans,” said John Martinez, SVP of Operations at Clearway. “The innovation of repowerings like this one proves that renewable energy projects don’t need to have a shelf life. By upgrading components with the latest state-of-the-art technology on the market, we’re able to keep wind farms generating power for decades longer than anyone could have imagined.”
The repower replaced major components across the site’s 26 turbines, including blades, generators, gearboxes, and drive-train parts for some turbines, and upgraded operating systems for all turbines.
The wind farm began its original commercial operations in 2008. Clearway’s public affiliate, Clearway Energy, Inc., acquired the project in 2020 to extend the life of the project, leveraging prior repowering experience.
A portion of the renewable attributes from Ocotillo were purchased on behalf of eight corporate buyers through Ever.green, a marketplace for high-impact Renewable Energy Certificates (“REC”). The RECs will go toward supporting Ever.green’s corporate customers in achieving their respective decarbonization goals through REC purchases.
This is Clearway’s fourth wind farm repower in Texas and fifth across its portfolio. Research firm Wood Mackenzie estimates that repowerings will be performed on 20 percent of the country’s existing wind fleet by 2028.
Clearway Energy Group is leading the transition to a world powered by clean energy. Along with its public affiliate Clearway Energy, Inc., it owns and operates more than 8 GW of renewable and conventional energy assets across the country. As it develops a nationwide pipeline of new renewable energy projects for the future, Clearway’s 5.6 GW of wind, solar, and energy storage assets offset the equivalent of more than 10.5 million metric tons of carbon emissions for its customers. Clearway Energy Group is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Carlsbad, California; Scottsdale, Arizona; Houston, Texas; and Princeton, New Jersey.
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