Over the past week, Siemens Energy announced it has landed contracts to supply three separate new wind farm projects using Hutchinson-made nacelles, including a major order in Canada.
The German-headquartered manufacturer also revealed it has reached agreement to provide service contracts on some 400 turbines at six different projects around the world operated by Pattern Energy Group.
The latest orders won’t boost hiring at the plant, but will help maintain the current 360-person workforce, local plant officials said.
“These orders, along with others in our backlog, have been factored into our employment level, and we expect our current workforce to be adequate,” Siemens spokeswoman Myca Welch said in an email.
The largest new order is for the 270-megawatt K2 Wind Ontario Project, located in Goderich in southwestern Ontario. Among the largest wind power plants in Canada, it will feature 140 of Siemens’ SWT-2.3-101 turbines.
K2 Wind will generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of 100,000 Ontario homes, with commercial operation expected in mid-2015, according to a company release.
The project owners are Samsung Renewable Energy Inc., Capital Power LP and Pattern Energy Group LP. The transaction includes a long-term service and maintenance agreement.
While the nacelles will be made in Hutchinson, a Siemens plant in Tillsonburg, Ontario, will make the turbine blades and the towers also will be produced in Canada.
Siemens made the K2 Wind announcement Monday at the annual American Wind Energy Association show, and then on Thursday announced a smaller contract to provide turbines for a farm in western Iowa.
The Carroll Wind Farm project, near the city of Carroll, will consist of nine 2.3-megawatt turbines, with 108-meter rotors made at Siemens’ Fort Madison, Iowa, plant. The customer is Carroll Area Wind Farm LLC, a company of NJR Clean Energy Ventures. Turbine installation should start in October, with commissioning in early 2015.
The final project is with Cobra Energia of Peru. The 97 MW Tres Hermanas wind power plant, to be located near the city of San Juan de Marcona and adjacent to the existing Marcona wind project, includes a combination of 25 direct-drive SWT-3.0-108 wind turbines and eight geared SWT-2.3-108 units.
The contract also includes six years of service and maintenance. The project is expected to be commissioned in July 2015.
The plant is the second Spanish wind developer Cobra Energia is executing with Siemens in Peru. In September 2013, Cobra Energia purchased 11 Siemens wind turbines with a total capacity of 32.1 MW for the Marcona wind project.
The new 10-year wind service agreements with California-based Pattern Energy Group encompass more than 400 onshore wind turbines in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico with a combined output of more than 930 MW.
The currently operating projects included in the new agreements are Pattern Energy’s St. Joseph Wind project in southern Manitoba, with 60 SWT 2.3-101 wind turbines (138 MW); Spring Valley Wind in eastern Nevada with 66 SWT-2.3-101 wind turbines (152 MW); Ocotillo Wind in Southern California with 112 SWT-2.3s-108 units (265 MW); Hatchet Ridge Wind in Northern California with 44 SWT-2.3-93 wind turbines (101 MW); and Santa Isabel in Puerto Rico with 44 SWT-2.3-108 units (101 MW).
The projects are also slated to receive a variety of modernization and upgrade components.
In addition to the projects currently in operation, Siemens has also signed a 10-year service agreement for the Panhandle 2 wind project in Texas with 79 SWT-2.3-108 turbines (182 MW), which Pattern Energy has agreed to acquire when the project reaches operation later this year.
Siemens currently provides service and maintenance for more than 3,100 installed wind turbines in the Americas region and more than 7,600 globally, with a combined generating capacity of about 17 gigawatts (GW).
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