EDF Renewables North America announced they have entered into a Build and Transfer Agreement (BTA) with Tucson Electric Power (TEP) for the 247.4-MW Oso Grande Wind Project. EDF will complete development of the project and manage the construction process on behalf of TEP.
Construction on the 61-turbine wind farm in Southern New Mexico is expected to start later this year, with full operation by the end of 2020.
Oso Grande Wind Project, located in southeastern New Mexico, will include a total of 61 wind turbines. The output of the turbines will be delivered to Tucson through existing transmission lines that connect to TEP’s transmission system in eastern Arizona.
“EDF Renewables is pleased to partner with TEP to supply cost-competitive, renewable energy to its customers from the Oso Grande Wind Project,” said Ryan Pfaff, Executive Vice President, Grid-Scale Power, EDF Renewables. “We look forward to assisting TEP in meeting its clean energy goals by completing Oso Grande in the second half of 2020.”
TEP President and CEO, David G. Hutchens, said, “This cost-effective system will become TEP’s largest renewable energy resource, accelerating our progress toward our clean energy goals while allowing us to help customers achieve their own sustainability objectives.”
When the project is complete, TEP’s renewable energy production is expected to exceed 28% of its retail sales. That level would more than double the state requirement for 2021 while approaching the 30% goal TEP has planned to achieve by 2030.
The expected annual energy production will be enough to meet the consumption of nearly 100,000 homes. This is equivalent to avoiding nearly 688,000 metric tons of carbon (CO₂) emissions annually which represents the greenhouse gas emissions from nearly 146,000 passenger vehicles driven over the course of one year.
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