Infrastructure and Energy Alternatives (IEA) has been awarded an EPC wind contract in excess of €83m in the state of Indiana.
The award is for the construction of a 302MW wind farm in Northern Indiana.
The contract was awarded to IEA subsidiary company, White Construction, a utility-scale energy and heavy civil infrastructure contractor.
Construction began on 24 August 2020 and is expected to be completed in November 2021.
Once complete, the wind farm will have the capacity to power more than 83,000 homes with clean electricity.
IEA will self-perform all of the engineering, procurement and construction needs of the project, including the building of access roads.
It will be also be responsible for the erection of wind generators, installation of turbine foundations, and the construction of the project substations, transmission lines and a medium-voltage collection system.
Flat terrain and high winds make Indiana an ideal location for wind construction.
Indiana ranks 12th in the nation for total wind capacity installed as of 30 June 2020, the most recent ranking information available.
According to the American Wind Energy Association, more than 1000 wind turbines have been erected across Indiana since 2008, which together produce approximately 2300MW of energy or roughly five percent of Indiana’s total electricity.
IEA’s president and CEO JP Roehm said: “There continues to be a strong demand for wind construction, and we are very pleased to be able to support the efforts to bring increased renewable energy sources to our home state of Indiana.
“Wind installations in the US in the second quarter of 2020 were the highest second quarter of installations on record.
This momentum has continued into the third quarter, and Indiana now has more than 1100MW of new wind energy capacity under construction or in advanced stages of development.
With the extension of the production tax credit for wind construction, technologies improving, component pricing decreasing, and the interest in green, sustainable energy sources increasing, we expect our wind pipeline to remain robust into 2021.”
To date, IEA has constructed more than 20GW of renewable energy projects across North America. IEA was recently ranked second for wind construction amongst Engineering News-Record’s 2020 Top 400 Contractors.