Blue Canyon II Wind Farm repower completed, required recycling of decommissioned composites turbine blades

EDP Renewables (EDRP, Madrid, Spain), through its EDP Renewables North America LLC (EDRP NA, Houston, Texas, U.S.) subsidiary, has completed its first repowering project in the U.S. at the Blue Canyon II Wind Farm, which is one phase of the 423-megawatt (MW) four-phase project located in southwestern Oklahoma. Due to this repowering, the installed capacity of the project increases from 151 MW to 162 MW.

EDPR NA anticipates the repowering operation of its Blue Canyon II Wind Farm to extend the project’s life an additional 20 to 30 years. Seventy-three of Blue Canyon II’s 84 turbines were repowered, replacing each turbine’s nacelle, blades and top tower section. The turbines were upgraded from Vestas (Aarhus, Denmark and Portland, Ore., U.S.) V80 1.8 MW machines to V110 2 MW machines.

Recycling of the decommissioned blades was a firm requirement from EDPR in this repowering, as the company is accelerating the adoption of blade recycling practices across its projects.

In addition to the four-phase Blue Canyon Wind Farm, which spans Caddo, Comanche and Kiowa counties, EDPR NA also operates the 100-MW Arbuckle Mountain in Murray and Carter counties and the 99-MW Redbed Plains Wind Farm in Grady County.

In total, EDPR NA’s Oklahoma projects have contributed an estimated $1.2 billion in capital investment in the state. Globally, EDPR has an installed capacity to date of 13.6 gigawatts (GW), with North America representing 52% of the portfolio. Specifically, the installed capacity amounts to 7 GW in North America.