An old wind farm in Texas just got a second life, and its capability has gone from 160 megawatts (MW) to 182 MW.
An old Texas wind farm gets a second wind
The Brazos Wind Farm is in Fluvanna, in Borden and Scurry counties, in West Texas. It sits on around 10,000 acres.
InfraRed Capital Investments acquired 60% ownership of the Brazos Wind Farm site last month, but Shell USA continues to operate the positioning.
Brazos was initially accomplished in December 2003 and featured 160 1-MW wind turbines able to powering around 30,000 homes. But Shell redeveloped it, and it now has 182 MW of power generation capability that may produce enough electricity to power roughly 67,000 homes.
Due to a rise in wind turbine size and more advanced technology, that big bump in generation capability has been achieved with 122 fewer turbines onsite. Brazos now features 38 next-generation Nordex 5-MW turbines. The recent Nordex turbines enable distant monitoring and data generation, plus they’re safer and more reliable.
(But… thirty-eight wind turbines x 5 MW = 180 MW. Maybe two old 1 MW turbines were retained to succeed in 182 MW? I’ve asked Shell.)
As for the 160 decommissioned turbines, Shell says it’s contracted the removal and repurposing of two,100 tons of fiberglass from the blades, and the “material will be repurposed to support the creation of products for concrete, asphalt, composites, and/or bulk molding applications.” (I’ve also asked Shell about its plans for the opposite turbine components and can update once I hear back.)
Electrek’s Take
At 21 years old, Brazos reached the tip of its life. Repurposing it makes sense – the infrastructure is already there to transmit the clean power. And the brand new Brazos will do it more efficiently – more power with fewer turbines.
Repurposing wind farms will almost actually turn into the norm in the longer term as wind farms age, and that’s great. But lots of thought, planning, and private and non-private collaboration have to be implemented now to return up with a recycling strategy for what shall be an unlimited amount of steel and fiberglass coming down the pipeline.
Read more: This 408-MW solar farm shall be considered one of the biggest in Texas
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Credit : electrek.co
