One of Texas’ biggest winds farms is getting an upgrade
An employee uses a polishing tool as he works on a wind turbine blade inside the Gamesa Corp. Tecnologica SA factory in Aoiz, Spain, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. Gamesa, Spain’s largest wind-turbine maker, will supply 101 2-megawatt turbines to Iberdrola SA for a wind farm in South Texas. Photographer: Antonio Heredia/Bloomberg
The massive Notrees wind farm just west of Odessa will get a major battery system upgrade in order to help the state electric grid respond to when Texas are using the most energy.
North Carolina-based Duke Energy said it will replace the wind farm’s lead acid battery storage system with lithium-ion technology in 2016 for better performance. Duke owns the Notrees Windpower Project that includes 95 wind turbines and generates 153 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 46,000 homes.
The upgraded system will work with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages most of the state’s grid, to react to energy usage by either rapidly releasing or storing energy, said Greg Wolf, president of Duke’s commercial portfolio, in a statement.
The wind farm opened in 2009 and the battery storage system was added in 2012. Texas is home to the most wind power production in the nation.
At the Notrees wind farm, Samsung SDI will provide the new batteries, while German-based Younicos is putting in the energy storage management system. Younicos’ North American operations are based in Kyle, Texas.