The Sagamore wind project is a 522MW onshore wind farm under construction in Roosevelt County, New Mexico, US.
The project was previously undertaken by Invenergy, a renewable energy company based in Chicago, US. Xcel Energy acquired the project and began construction planning in 2017. Xcel Energy will own and operate the wind farm through its subsidiary South-western Public Service (SPS).
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Sagamore will be the second major wind farm to be owned by Xcel Energy in the New Mexico-Texas region, after the 478MW Hale wind farm near Plainview, Texas. Construction of the £540m ($700m) Hale wind project was completed in June 2019.
The £682m ($900m) Sagamore wind project broke ground in December 2019, with commissioning expected by the end of 2020. It is expected to generate enough electricity for approximately 193,000 households.
The project is expected to create 400 construction jobs and up to 30 full-time jobs during operations.
Location and site details
The onshore wind farm is being developed on a 40,468ha site in Roosevelt County, 32km south-east of Portales, New Mexico.
The project area comprises land obtained from roughly 150 private landowners as well as state trust land. Up to 98% of the land will remain intact for agricultural use, due to the small footprint of the wind turbines.
Xcel Energy will be responsible for decommissioning and dismantling of the wind farm at the end of its useful life, according to the land agreement.
Sagamore wind farm make-up
The Sagamore wind farm will be equipped with 240 wind turbines from Vestas for a net annual generating capacity of 2,389GWh.
The foundation of each turbine will consist of reinforced concrete with steel rebar layers and an anchor bolt cage located at the centre.
The site infrastructure will also include access roads, a cable network to gather electricity generated by each turbine, and a new substation to transmit the wind farm’s electricity output into the grid.
Wind turbine details
The Sagamore wind project will feature a combination of V110-2.0 MW and V116-2.1 MW wind turbines from Vestas.
The V110-2.0 MW turbine comes with a 110m-diameter rotor and 54m-long blades, whereas the V116-2.1 MW turbine has a 116m-diameter rotor and 57m-long blades. The swept areas of the turbines are 9,503m² and 10,568m², respectively.
Featuring 80m-tall tabular steel tower, both the turbine models are designed to operate at 3m/s cut-in and 20m/s cut-out wind speed.
Power transmission
The power generated by each turbine will be collected and transmitted via a network of underground cables into the project substation.
The electricity will be further transmitted through an 8km-long, 345kV generation tie (gen tie) line connecting the Crossroads substation, which is also owned by the South-western Public Service (SPS). The proposed width of the right of way (ROW) for the gen tie line is 180ft, which will primarily run through private lands.
The electricity generated by the wind farm will be fed into the Southwest Power Pool’s (SPP) transmission grid. SPP is one of the regional transmission system operators in the US.
Contractors involved
Wanzek Construction, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Florida-based engineering and construction company Mas Tec, has been engaged as the general construction contractor for the Sagamore wind project.
Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas was contracted to supply the wind turbines for the project. Vestas will also be responsible for the maintenance of the turbines for three years after the commissioning of the wind farm.
