The 495MW Buffalo Plains wind farm, located in Alberta, Canada, was developed by renewable energy investment company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).
Construction on the project commenced in November 2023. The first power was delivered in August 2024, while operations started in October 2024.
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The project is managed by Horizon New Energy, a Canadian development portfolio owned by CIP.
The wind farm can produce approximately 1.5 million megawatt hours of power a year and supply electricity to 240,000 homes in Alberta, while displacing approximately 795,000t of carbon dioxide emissions per year.
The project generated 300 jobs during the construction phase and up to 15 permanent local jobs. It is anticipated to operate for around 25 years.
Project development background
The Buffalo Plains wind project was originally developed by renewable energy developer ABO Wind.
The project design was finalised in November 2020, including turbine locations, access roads, collector line routing, permanent met masts and a substation with operations and maintenance (O&M) building locations.
In April 2021, ABO Wind applied for transmission system access to connect the facility to the Alberta Electric System Operator, which is responsible for planning and operating Alberta’s electricity grid.
The Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) issued the permit for the project to ABO Wind in February 2022. The project received a permit for its transmission interconnection from the AUC in June 2022.
CIP purchased the project from ABO Wind in July 2022.
Location of Buffalo Plains wind farm
The project is located near Lomond in Vulcan County, Alberta, in an area of approximately 17,500 acres (7,082 hectares).
The site area is predominantly flat with slight undulations and has traditionally been used for farming.
Buffalo Plains wind farm details
The Buffalo Plains wind farm features 83 wind turbine units from Siemens Gamesa. The turbines are a mix of SG6.6-170 with a capacity of 6.6MW and SG5.2-145, which has a capacity of 5.2MW.
The SG6.6-170 turbine has a hub height of 110.5m with a blade rotor diameter of 170m, while the SG5.0-145 turbine features a 95.5m hub height with a blade rotor diameter of 145m.
The associated infrastructure includes a substation, a collector system with fibre-optic cabling, a transmission line, two meteorological towers and new access roads.
The collector system has a transmission capacity of 34.5kV. The cables are accompanied by fibre-optic cables and run underground and above ground to transmit the electricity from the turbines to the substation.
A 240kV high-voltage transmission line with a length of 12–15km was constructed to connect the project’s substation to the Alberta grid. The substation is linked to the 356S Milo substation in Lomond, Canada.
Two temporary meteorological towers were used to measure wind speed and direction at the project site during the development phase. The two towers were removed upon completion of construction and replaced with four permanent meteorological towers.
An O&M building was constructed for the local maintenance staff.
Power purchase agreements
Amazon is purchasing 415MW of output from the Buffalo Plains wind farm as part of a power purchase agreement signed with CIP in November 2023.
Contractors involved
Canada-based construction company Borea Construction provided construction services for the project.
Sarens, a heavy lift, engineered transport and crane rental services provider, was contracted by Borea Construction to offload and install the 83 Siemens wind turbines. The company completed the installation using a boom booster, an LG-1750 mobile crane and three CC-3800 cranes.
PEAK Wind, a renewable energy specialist, was contracted to deliver the project’s operations and asset management.
CIP was advised by financial advisory company FIH Partners (now part of ABGSC) on investment in the Buffalo Plains wind farm.
