Cedar Creek II Wind Farm, Colorado, US, United States of America

The Cedar Creek II Wind Farm is a 250MW project being developed 20 miles north of New Raymer, Weld County in the state of Colorado. The project broke ground in September 2010 with a schedule to begin commercial operation by June 2011.

The wind farm was earlier owned by Cedar Creek Wind Energy, a joint venture of BP Wind Energy (33%) and an Australian wind power producer Infigen Energy (67%) (formerly Babcock & Brown). In November 2010, Sempra Generation acquired 50% of BP's stake in the plant. BP Wind Energy and Sempra Generation now own 16.5% each in the plant.

Estimated at $300m, the project is backed by a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with the Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCO), a subsidiary of Xcel Energy.

The wind farm will generate enough electricity to supply power to 75,000 households. The project will help Colorado achieve its renewable energy target of 30% by 2020.

Project details

Cedar Creek II is being constructed to the east of the existing 300.5MW Cedar Creek I Wind Farm which was commissioned in 2008.

The new wind farm will add 123 turbines to the existing 274 turbines of the Cedar Creek I, increasing the total number to 397.

The project will feature a combination of GE and Nordex wind turbines. It will have 63 GE SLE turbines of 1.6MW each and 60 Nordex wind turbines of 2.5MW each. The Nordex turbine model that will be used for the wind farm is, however, yet to be specified.

Development

Topographic and ALTA survey of the Cedar Creek site was carried out by Westwood along the existing transmission line route. An additional 24km of overhead 34.5kV lines within the wind farm boundary were also included in the survey.

Minnesota based Mortenson Construction is constructing the wind farm under an EPC contract.

The existing transmission lines of Cedar Creek were constructed by Castle Rock-based Great Southwestern Construction under a subcontract.

Grid network

Power generated by Cedar Creek II will be transmitted through a 20-mile long new over-head transmission line. It will be integrated with the existing Cedar Creek I's interconnection with the Public Service Company.

Cedar Creek I has a 74-mile long, 230kV transmission line.

Finance

The project construction is backed by a long-term, non-recourse loan of $300m from the Spanish bank Banco Santander and the French bank Société Générale.

The other banks which have lent support for the project are Bank of Tokyo, BBVA and Lloyds TSB.

Technology

GE 1.6SLE wind turbine is an upgraded version of the widely used GE 1.5SLE turbine. The WindBOOST control system upgrade turns the blades faster to increase the output by 100KW from 1.5 to 1.6MW.

This technology focuses on increasing the output of the turbine, resulting in greater revenues to wind operators. The WindBOOST technology enables up to 4% increased power output a year, resulting in a lower payback period to the operator. It is flexible enough to increase production during periods when the electricity rates are high. The control system can be controlled from remote locations to turn on and off the system at turbine level.

Colorado power market

Coal and gas fired plants dominate electricity generation in Colorado. Coal-fired plants account for 70%, natural gas-fired plants produce 25% and the remaining 5% is accounted for by hydroelectric and wind power facilities.

As of July 2010, the state produced approximately 5m MWh accounting for just 1.2% of the US share. Colorado has substantial renewable energy potential that is yet to be developed. The state is not energy intensive as less than one-fifth of the households use electricity as the main source for heating. The transportation and industrial sectors in the state are, however, more energy intensive sectors.

In March 2007, the state adopted a new renewable portfolio standard that required large utilities to produce 20% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020.