Spinning Spur 3 enters commercial operation

After acquiring the third 194-megawatt (MW) Spinning Spur 3 wind farm project in Texas from developer Cielo Wind Power in January 2014, US independent power producer EDF Renewable Energy yesterday announced the launch of commercial operations.

The wind farm is located 50 miles west of Amarillo in Oldham County, Texas, and feeds into the competitive renewable energy zone (CREZ) transmission infrastructure. Construction on the 97 Vestas V-100 2 MW wind turbines began in October 2014.

The farm is now expected to produce enough electricity to power 58,200 homes. According to US Energy Environmental Protection Agency methodology, it will avoid approximately 560,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, the equivalent of the annual emissions from approximately 110,000 passenger vehicles, according to an EDF statement.

With this latest project in operation, the group's installed wind capacity in the state has now reached 1,066MW through six projects.

EDF previously acquired both Spinning Spur 1 and 2 from Cielo, taking full ownership of the projects save for a $200 million Google investment in Spinning Spur 1.

As reported by Infrastructure Investor in February, funds managed by  BlackRock Infrastructure are involved in the Spinning Spur 3 project.

The power generated by Spinning Spur 3 will be sold to Georgetown Utility Systems and Garland Power and Light under long-term power purchase agreements. 

In total, EDF's North American renewables portfolio includes 6 gigawatts of wind, solar, biomass and biogas projects across the US, Canada and Mexico.