Scioto Ridge wind farm is a 250MW onshore wind power project under construction in the Hardin and Logan counties, Ohio, US. It is the first onshore wind farm in the US to be implemented by Innogy, an energy company based in Germany.
The final investment decision (FID) on the Scioto Ridge wind farm, which is estimated to cost more than £237m ($300m), was reached in November 2018, while construction was started in June 2019.
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Scheduled to commence operations in the last quarter of 2020, the onshore wind farm is expected to produce sufficient clean power to electrify more than 60,000 Ohio homes a year. The project is also expected to generate 150 construction jobs and ten full-time operation jobs.
Scioto Ridge wind project background
The Scioto Ridge project was initially undertaken by the US-based wind energy development and generation company Everpower Wind Holdings, a subsidiary of the UK-based private equity investor Terra Firma Capital Partners.
innogy agreed to acquire Everpower from Terra Firma at the end of 2017, while the transaction was completed following approval by the US government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) in July 2018.
With the acquisition of Everpower, innogy became the sole owner and developer of more than 20 onshore wind power development projects in the US, including the Scioto Ridge wind farm.
The acquired projects, which are in various stages of development, represent a total capacity of more than 2GW and are located across eight states of the US, including Maine, Maryland, Montana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Wyoming.
Scioto Ridge is the first among the acquired projects to have entered the construction phase.
Scioto Ridge wind farm make-up
The Scioto Ridge wind farm will be installed with a total of 75 wind turbines from Siemens Gamesa, which has already received an order to supply 63 SG 3.4-132 turbines and nine SG 2.6-114 onshore wind turbines for the project.
With 132m-diameter rotor and 64.5m-long blades, each SG 3.4-132 turbine will have a swept area of 13,685m², rated power output of 3.465MW, and power density of 253.2W/m².
The SG 2.6-114 wind turbines, on the other hand, will have 114m-diameter rotor and 56m-long blades. Each turbine will have a swept area of 10,207m² and a power density of 257.18W/m². The rated capacity of each turbine will be 2.625MW.
Equipped with doubly-fed induction generators, both the turbine models are designed to generate electricity at 690V either in 50Hz or 60Hz frequencies.
With blades made up of fiberglass reinforced with epoxy or polyester resin, both turbine types are designed to operate in a temperature range between 20ºC and 30ºC.
Both SG 3.4-132 and SG 2.6-114 wind turbines are found suitable for medium to high onshore sites.
Power off-take
Innogy will sell the electricity generated by the Scioto Ridge onshore wind farm in the wholesale electricity market, while it has secured the electricity price for an undisclosed amount of power generation from the wind farm through a 13-year power purchase agreement (PPA).
Contractors involved
Siemens Gamesa was awarded the turbine supply contract for the Scioto Ridge wind farm in January 2019.
The scope of the contract also includes service and maintenance agreement for the turbines for a period of ten years.
