Construction to start soon on Oklahoma wind project

Construction is expected to begin in late fall 2020 on a new wind farm in north-central Oklahoma, Kallanish Energy has learned.

The 288-megawatt Maverick Wind Center will be built by Invenergy LLC, officials told the Enid News and Eagle newspaper.

The $402 million facility in Major County is expected to begin service in December 2021.

The 103 turbines will be located on 55,000 acres of land between Ringwood and Lahoma and southwest of Enid.

It will produce enough electricity to power 85,000 homes.

The electricity generated will go to American Electric Power and its subsidiaries to sell to customers in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

It is part of Ohio-based AEP’s $2 billion plan to develop 1,485 megawatts of wind power to go to customers in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. Texas regulators rejected the project.

Maverick is part of a larger, three-facility complex dubbed the North Central Energy Facility.

It includes the 199-megawatt Sundance wind farm where construction is expected to begin this fall in Woods, Major and Alfalfa counties and the 999-megawatt Traverse wind farm to be built in 2021 in Custer, Blaine and Kingfisher counties.

AEP will acquire all three wind farms when they go online.

Invenergy will manage the facilities under service contracts.

Invenergy has been working with federal aviation officials and the Air Force to assure that the Maverick wind farm will not impact commercial or military aviation near Vance Air Force Base.

Construction of the Maverick wind farm will create about 150 construction jobs.

Illinois-based Invenergy had purchased the Maverick project in March 2019 from Tradewind Energy.

Privately held Invenergy has developed 145 clean-energy projects totaling about 22,600 megawatts. It has operations in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

This post appeared first on Kallanish Energy News.