Foard City Wind Project

Foard City wind project is a 350MW onshore wind farm located in Texas, US. Innergex Renewable Energy (Innergex) is the owner and developer of the wind farm.

Construction of the onshore wind project was commenced in the fourth quarter of 2018, while commissioning was completed in September 2019. Innergex invested £294m ($384.8m) in the project.

The Foard City wind project is expected to produce electricity at an average of 1,230GWh in the long-term.

Foard City wind project location and make-up

Foard City wind project is situated in Foard County, over an area of 31,449 acres. It features 139 GE 2.X-127 onshore wind turbines. Each turbine has a hub height and rotor diameter of 114m and 127m, respectively. The turbine uses doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) with a partial power converter system to generate power.

The IIS/IIIS IEC wind class turbine has an average velocity of 7.85m/s and a cut-in speed of 3m/s. With 60Hz frequency, each turbine is expected to produce between 2.2MW and 2.8MW.

Foard City wind project financing

Multiple lenders, including Zions Bancorp, Santander, MUFG, and Royal Bank of Canada, provided a loan of $290.9m for the Foard City wind project. Berkshire Hathaway Energy committed to make $275m of equity investment in the project.

The financing also includes a seven-year term loan facility, with a ten-year amortisation period following the start of commercial operations.

Power transmission

The power generated by the wind farm will be delivered to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). The Electric Transmission Texas (ETT) 345kV transmission line starts from Edith Clarke substation and ends at Foard City collector station. It was built as a 2.7-mile single-circuit capable transmission line and on twin circuit capable tubular steel monopole structures.

Power purchase agreement and sale of electricity

Innergex signed a 12-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Vistra Energy for the sale of 300MW of electricity from the Foard City project.

Innergex will sell the remaining energy in the market at a normal price.

Contractors involved

GE was awarded the contract to supply onshore wind turbines for the Foard City wind project in November 2019. The contractual scope also includes a 20-year full service agreement.

ETT is responsible for the 345kV transmission line design and construction. ETT subcontracted Burns & McDonnell Engineering for preparing the environmental assessment and routing analysis for the 345kV transmission line in Foard County.

Wind power market in Texas

The US currently has more than 500 manufacturing facilities, which manufacture products for the wind power industry and create more than 25,000 direct jobs in the wind industry, according to American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

Texas is leading the wind power generation market in the entire US and tops the list for installed and under-construction wind farms. The state has more than 27GW of wind capacity installed and more than £31.4bn ($46bn) invested on wind energy.

Texas also ranks first in the US in terms of wind turbines manufactured, with 6,261MW of wind capacity under construction.

The wind market saved approximately 26 billion gallons of water and avoided 54 million metric tons of CO₂ emissions in 2018 alone.