RWE Renewables has partnered with GE Renewable Energy to repower its Panther Creek 3 wind farm in west Texas, US.
The repowering project will involve the replacement of a “significant portion” of the wind turbine components, including installation of longer blades and upgrading existing gearboxes, increasing the annual production for all 133 wind turbine generators on the site, with a total installed capacity of 215MW.
The commissioning of the project is expected to be complete in third quarter of 2021.
The blades that are removed during the repowering will be processed and recycled, as a part of GE Renewable Energy’s blade recycling agreement with Veolia North America.
Veolia will process the blades for use as a raw material for cement, using a cement kiln co-processing technology.
Nearly 90% of the blade material, by weight, will be reused as a repurposed engineered material for cement production.
“GE Renewable Energy is proud to work with RWE on the Panther Creek 3 repower project,” said Ben Stafford, GE Renewable Energy’s services sales and commercial operations leader for Onshore Americas.
“Through repowering, we have the opportunity to extend the life of these turbines, while also improving the performance and reliability of the wind farm-and by sustainably recycling wind blades, we are working to create a circular economy for composite materials.”
This is the third repowering project RWE has commissioned GE Renewable Energy to do. Panther Creek 1 (142.5MW) and Panther Creek 2 (115.5MW) with a total of 172 turbines, were repowered in the third quarter of 2019.
Panther Creek 3 came online in August 2009 and was the last of a three-phase project in West Texas located in Sterling, Howard and Glasscock counties.