These wind farms are being developed as part of the company’s major wind expansion and are expected to increase its wind power by more than 60%.
Electricity from these projects could power as many as 450,000 average US homes. The projects could come online by 2020.
Rocky Mountain Power has selected companies to build the four wind farms, for which RfPs were issued back in last September.
The estimated total cost of the wind projects is $1.5bn. The company stated that this budget is significantly less on per megawatt-basis.
The four projects include the 400MW project in Converse County, the 161MW wind project in Uinta County, the 500MW wind project in Carbon and Albany Counties and the 250MW wind project in Carbon County. All the wind farms will be located in the state of Wyoming.
The first project will be built by NextEra Energy Resources. In the project, half of the project will be owned by PacifiCorp, and the other half will be owned and delivered by NextEra under a power purchase agreement (PPA).
The second project will be built by Invenergy and will be owned and operated by PacifiCorp. The third and the fourth projects will be built, owned and operated by PacifiCorp.
Rocky Mountain Power president and CEO Cindy A. Crane said: “The new wind projects are part of the company’s Energy Vision 2020 initiative, which will significantly expand the company’s Wyoming wind fleet and benefit the state and local economies.
“The project also includes a 140-mile segment of the Gateway West high-voltage transmission line in Wyoming to connect the new wind energy to Rocky Mountain Power’s grid.”
Cumulatively, these four projects could create between 1,100 and 1,600 construction jobs and more than 200 permanent jobs in the state.
The projects can add about $120m in tax revenue from construction to the region.
Rocky Mountain Power also stated that it plans to complete the projects by 2020, so as to take the advantage of federal production tax credits to provide net savings to customers over the life the projects.
Construction of the new wind and transmission projects is expected to begin in 2019.
Image: Rocky Mountain Power’s 4 new wind projects could come online by 2020. Photo: Courtesy of Rocky Mountain Power.
