Red Hills Wind Farm

» See our response to public comments on this project

The Red Hills Wind Farm project is located in Southern Custer and Roger Mills Counties, between Hammon and Elk City, Oklahoma. The project first began delivering power to the Southwest Power Pool in October 2008. The project was completed in March 2009, and includes 82 turbines with a total capacity of 123 MW. The project is owned by ACCIONA Energy, a global company headquartered in Spain with renewable energy projects in 14 countries.

This project has been validated to the Voluntary Carbon Standard using the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism carbon protocol ACM0002.

TerraPass funds will help ensure an adequate financial return for the project and satisfy the expectation project developers had about the voluntary market supporting the project.

Project details

Red Hills Wind Farm is sited on 5,000 acres of mixed use agriculture and grazing land, ten miles north of Elk City, Oklahoma. ACCIONA has secured 23 leases or easements with local landowners across the project area for the turbine pads, access roads, operations facilities and the transmission line path. Seventy of the projects 82 1.5 MW turbines are located in Roger Mills County, with the remaining 12 in Custer County.

ACCIONA Windpower manufactured the projects turbines at its North American manufacturing plant in West Branch, Iowa. These turbines are designed using ACCIONAs proprietary technology, standing 80 meters tall with 77 meter-wide rotors and a blade radius of 37.3 meters. The turbines operate at wind speeds of 3-18 meters/second, and rotate at approximately 16.7 rpm. The project is expected to generate enough electricity to power 40,000 homes.

Red Hills Wind Farm is ACCIONAs fourth wind project in the United States. Extensive permitting and environmental impact assessments (along with voluntary avian and bat studies) were completed to evaluate the projects effects on the local environment. These impacts are primarily related to project construction, including turbine foundations, roads, operations buildings, and the installation of transmission lines and support towers. Construction affects only a small percentage of the projects total 5,000 acres, allowing agriculture and grazing activities to continue.

Project location

The project is located in Southern Custer and Roger Mills Counties, ten miles North of Elk City, Oklahoma.

Other social and environmental benefits and costs

Environmental Benefits

• The project provides renewable energy to a region that relies predominantly on coal (65%) and natural gas (25%) for electrical production, and has no Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) in place. The project displaces greenhouse gas emissions from grid electricity generation.
• Local ranching and agricultural activities will continue in the project area.
• There are no notable environmental nuisances/hazards associated with the project.

Social/Economic Benefits

• ACCIONA is providing local capital through 23 leases or easements from landowners for the turbine footprints and operations facilities.
• The projects turbines were manufactured in the U.S. at ACCIONA Windpowers plant in West Branch, Iowa.
• The project generated significant local construction employment during development, and 15 new, local, full-time permanent jobs related to operations and maintenance.

Project’s ability to foster further greenhouse gas emission reductions

• Red Hills Wind Farm will add to Oklahomas growing portfolio of renewable energy projects, and help draw attention to the states vast wind resources.

Project’s environmental and social costs

• The project required the manufacture and transport (over 700 miles) of 82 turbines, as well as the construction of project facilities and the associated consumption of energy-intensive goods such as concrete and steel. However, relative to the emission reductions created by the project, these construction emissions are small.

Discussion of appropriate use of TerraPass funds

TerraPass considers many aspects of projects before deciding whether to fund them. Here is a summary of key considerations for this project.

Baseline conditions

Red Hills Wind Farm is located in the Southwest Power Pool of the National Electric Reliability Corporation grid map. Using the Clean Development Mechanism renewable energy carbon protocol, Red Hills wind power will displace 0.67 metric tons of CO2 for each megawatt-hour produced.

Additionality

No regulatory requirements. Oklahoma does not have a Renewable Portfolio Standard. Wind projects not required by law or used to satisfy an RPS or other renewable generation requirements are considered in surplus to regulation.

Barriers to implementation. This project faces the same early market, financial and technology barriers as many renewable energy projects. Compared to building additional fossil fuel-fired power plants, the Red Hills Wind project faced barriers to implementation that those plants would not.

Impact of TerraPass funds. TerraPass seeks projects where the funding from our purchases helps assure a positive financial outlook on the greenhouse gas emission reduction project. This wind farm was originally begun by a local developer, who was unable to complete the project due to lack of funding. In addition, the carbon validation process includes a detailed, project-specific financial review which confirmed that the project would not have been built without an ongoing revenue stream from its environmental attributes. Finally, ACCIONA chose to take a market-leading stance to qualify this project using a project-specific, rigorous carbon standard rather than simply selling Renewable Energy Credits.

Better than most. TerraPass seeks projects where the operations have shown good practices and avoided substantial negative impacts. Red Hills Wind Farm used numerous environmental surveys to ensure effective conservation strategies were implemented in the construction and operation of the project.