August 31, 2019
Texas

Area wind farm sold, improvement project to begin

By Nathan Lawson | The Graham Leader | 08/30/2019 | www.grahamleader.com

Ares Management acquired the Trinity Hills wind farm, in North Young County and Southern Archer County, and two other Texas wind farms from British Petroleum Wind Energy North America, Inc. on Dec. 21, 2018, according to a press release.

On Monday, the Young County Commissioners Court entered into a road use agreement with the wind farm company so they can begin working on upgrades.

“The repowering project that we are doing, we are actually using the foundation (of the turbine,)” Ares’ Sean McMullen said. “All we are doing is taking the nacelle off, the blades and adding an adapter section to (change the pattern of the blades) and to give us a little extra height and length to the blade. Then we will put a new rotor on, a new nacelle on and new cables inside the turbines.”

McMullen said the wind farm has 90 turbines, but right now only 53 are running and they are derated to about 1.65 megawatts instead of the 2.5 megawatts as intended.

As part of this project, the new management company had to approach both counties with agreements to use and maintain their access roads.

“As we started this process, we actually met with (Young County) Judge (John) Bullock and (Archer County) Judge (Randall) Jackson to make sure that everything we were doing between the two counties was almost identical.”

McMullen said. “So, that there wasn’t any favoritism or any changes between the two counties.”

McMullen said the road use agreement was penned by Archer County Attorney David Levy. He said he came to the Young County Commissioners Court meeting immediately after Archer County’s meeting.

The roads which will be used in Young County are a 1.32 mile stretch of Campbell Road between Hwys. 114 and 1768, Garvey Ranch Road starting at Hwy. 1768 for 0.7 miles, Hilton Road starting at Hwy. 1768 for about a mile until county line and Andrews Road for a 3.19 mile stretch starting at Garvey Ranch Road.

For the rest of the story, see the Saturday, Aug. 31 edition of The Graham Leader.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2019/08/31/area-wind-farm-sold-improvement-project-to-begin/