A subsidiary of US contractor Infrastructure and Energy Alternatives (IEA) has been awarded a $70m balance of plant contract by Vitol for the 240MW Big Sky wind farm repowering in the US state of Illinois.
Work on repowering the Big Sky wind farm, located in Bureau and Lee Counties, will start in August and is expected to be completed in July 2022.
IEA will self-perform all of the engineering, procurement and construction needs of the project, including full decommissioning and foundation removal of five existing turbines and the repowering of 109 machines, including the replacement of nacelles, hubs, blades and adaptor rings.
It is expected that the project will increase the wind farm’s annual output by approximately 60%.
IEA president and chief executive JP Roehm said: “White Construction originally built the Big Sky wind farm in 2010, and we are very excited to partner with Vitol to repower this project.
“As the wind energy industry matures and turbine technology improves, we anticipate repowering projects will become more common – it’s a great way to increase clean energy production without having to construct a new farm from scratch.”
IEA has constructed more than 20GW of renewable energy projects across North America.