Repowering: Extending New Life Into Older Wind Projects

In Big Spring, Texas, IEA Constructors is working to repower RWE’s Panther Creek III, a 133-turbine wind farm. Typically, a wind farm has a lifespan of more than 20 years. As many farms begin to age out, repowering projects are increasing in popularity. At Panther Creek III and other repowering projects, the goal is extending the life of the wind farm by maintaining the structure of the turbines—replacing blades, upsizing generators and more. “We’re using the existing turbines with new technology,” said Roderick L. Cossman, IEA Constructors Project Manager. Repowering projects increase clean energy efforts in many ways. By maintaining existing structures, repowering eliminates the need to construct an entirely new wind farm. Further, the technology updates to the turbines often result in a capacity factor increase and make them more efficient overall. All this, at just one-third of the cost of building a new wind farm. “The good thing about a repower is that it benefits everybody,” said David Clark, Construction Site Manager for RWE, the Panther Creek III project owner. “It benefits the landowner, us as the owner of the power plant and it benefits the grid.” At the Panther Creek III site, IEA Constructors is replacing the existing 1.5 turbines with 1.6 turbines, rebuilding the generators, upsizing the rotors and more. “It’s important because it makes the site more productive,” said Clark. “A lot of the better wind-producing areas have already been built. You can make the existing wind farms more efficient, the older turbines power output can be improved.” In addition to producing additional clean energy from existing infrastructure, all turbine blades removed during the Panther Creek III repowering project will be recycled and repurposed, as a part of GE Renewable Energy’s agreement with Veolia North America. Through this process they will be shredded and used as a replacement for coal, sand and clay during the manufacturing of cement. On average, nearly 90% of the blade material, by weight, will be reused as a repurposed engineered material for cement production. Through a recent environmental impact analysis conducted by Quantis U.S., blade recycling enables a 27% net reduction in CO₂ emissions and a 13% net reduced water consumption. Ultimately, blade recycling has a net-positive environmental impact in human health, ecosystem quality and resource consumption. "GE Renewable Energy enjoyed partnering with IEA and RWE on the Panther Creek III project All three teams joined forces with a spirit of teamwork and shared commitment to project success and unwavering dedication to personal safety,” said Greg Cleveland, Senior Project Manager. “Repowering enables wind turbines to increase the amount of clean, renewable energy generated while also extending the life of the wind farm.” As you can see, by increasing productivity of the site and recycling old material, the Panther Creek III project continues to set the tone for continuing to transform the clean energy industry. As Cossman said, “I think repowering is going to be a thing of the future,” and we couldn’t agree more.