West Virginia’s New Creek Wind Project celebrates official grand opening
As our first facility in West Virginia, the New Creek Wind Project is a big deal to Enbridge.
And as it turns out, this 103-megawatt (MW) wind farm in Grant County is a big deal just about any way you measure it.
The blades on each of the 49 turbines are 150 feet long—that’s one-and-a-half times the size of an adult blue whale. Each turbine has an effective height of 400 feet, taller than either the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor (305 feet) or Big Ben in London’s Tower of Westminster (315 feet).
“In fact, the area that the rotor covers—about 7,500 square meters—is big enough to park a Boeing 747,” said Rob Jozwiak on Thursday.
Jozwiak, the South Region Manager for Enbridge’s Power Operations division, was in Grant County on Thursday along with Enbridge representatives, local elected officials, and members of the community for the grand opening of the New Creek Wind Project.
One of 18 wind farms (either in operation or under construction) in Enbridge’s investment portfolio, the New Creek Wind Project officially began commercial operations in December 2016, and provides a strategic entry point into the PJM power market, which supplies reliable electricity to more than 61 million Americans.
The wind farm—spread over 5,000 acres on New Creek Mountain—has the capacity to power about 23,000 homes annually. That’s more than “two million watts, or 28,000 standard LED bulbs, per turbine,” noted Jozwiak on Thursday.
New Creek is also the fifth Enbridge-owned wind farm in the United States to begin generating green energy. The sixth, the 249-MW Chapman Ranch Wind Project in Nueces County, Texas, is scheduled to enter service later this year.
Since our initial investment in a wind farm in 2002, Enbridge has committed more than $7.8 billion in capital to renewable energy and power transmission projects currently in operation or under construction.
Together, our renewable energy and power transmission projects represent more than 3,900 MW (gross) of green power capacity. That's enough to meet the electricity needs of more than 1,800,000 homes—based on gross generation figures—through projects either in operation or under construction.
Enbridge purchased the New Creek Wind Project in November 2015 from EverPower Wind Holdings, LLC.
