Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Locals attend wind farm open house

PORTALES — Two energy companies hosted a full house Tuesday evening as public officials, business leaders and other residents piled into the Yam Theatre to ask questions about what will soon be the largest wind farm in New Mexico.

Sagamore Wind Project, a 522-megawatt wind farm, is on its way to Roosevelt County as of 2020.

Chicago-based Invenergy has been working on the project the last several years, according to Director of Renewable Development Krista Jo Mann, and has about 80 private land owners contracted to house wind turbines at this point.

But the company is still recruiting more, which was part of the purpose in holding an open house — that, and to allow other area residents a chance to ask questions.

Mann also said the company has submitted an application to the state land office to try to acquire state land for the project.

"It's a fantastic wind resource; we like the access to transmission, and we had very willing land owners," Mann said of the region. "Once we have enough homes for turbines and really good continuity throughout the project, then at that point, we'll be in good shape."

Mann said the project moved very slowly the first few years, but she said it is moving along more smoothly and quickly now.

"So far, we are feeling very welcome in the community, so I think things are going well," she said.

Invenergy signed an agreement with Xcel Energy in March, so after Invenergy finishes acquiring all of the land and getting regulations in order, i.e., making the project "shovel-ready", Xcel will purchase the project and construct it.

The project, to be located 20 miles southeast of Portales next to the Roosevelt Wind Project, is expected to become operational sometime in 2020 with around 250 wind turbines on about 100,000 acres of land. The wind farm's power will go into the eastern power grid.

Invenergy company officials anticipate the project will create about 200 construction jobs and 20 to 30 permanent jobs once it is operational, and both Invenergy and Xcel officials reiterated Tuesday night that they want to use as many local contractors during the construction process as possible.

Due to the renewable energy tax credit, the project must be completed by the end of 2020, so Xcel hopes to begin construction in late 2018 or early 2019, according to Xcel Energy Spokesman Wes Reeves, who said the project will be the first wind farm Xcel will fully own in their Texas/New Mexico operational area.

"We wanted to go from purchasing wind energy to actually owning wind energy, because we believe we can control the cost a lot better than with just purchasing," Reeves said. "We know what the price is going to be (with wind energy) versus we don't know with natural gas generation; it could go way high again, or it could fall."

Reeves and Brooke Trammell, director of customer and community relations with Xcel, said the base rate for Xcel Energy customers could rise slightly for a few years to pay for the project, but in the long run, the project will likely save customers money, because any time the wind farm is operational, that means the company's more costly coal and gas plants are not operating, and fuel costs are what usually cause fluctuations in utility costs.