Portland General Electric Company and NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy, Inc., plan to construct a new energy facility in Eastern Oregon combining 300 megawatts of wind generation with 50 megawatts of solar generation and 30 megawatts of battery storage.
The new project, called the Wheatridge Renewable Energy Facility, will be the first of this scale in North America to co-locate and integrate these three technologies, creating an improved zero-emissions resource and accelerating Oregon’s transition to clean energy.
The new facility, combined with PGE’s existing resources, will bring the company’s wind generation portfolio to a nameplate total of more than 1,000 megawatts (one gigawatt), available from five owned or contracted wind farms in the Northwest—enough power to serve the equivalent of 340,000 homes. The solar farm will be one of the largest in Oregon, while the battery storage facility will be the largest in Oregon and one of the largest in the United States.
With the addition of these new renewable resources, PGE expects to meet about 50% of its customers’ power needs with emissions-free generation.
Power from the facility will be generated by 120 wind turbines manufactured by GE Renewable Energy, Inc. The wind farm will be located just north of Lexington, Oregon, in Morrow County. The specific equipment to be used at the associated solar farm and battery storage facility is still to be determined. . . .
PGE will own 100 megawatts of the wind project. A subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources will own the balance of the project and sell its output to PGE under 30-year power purchase agreements. . . .
The wind component of the facility will be operational by December 2020 and qualify for the federal production tax credit at the 100 percent level. Construction of the solar and battery components is planned for 2021 and will qualify for the federal investment tax credit. The tax credits help reduce the cost of the project over time, thus reducing costs to PGE’s customers. PGE expects to invest approximately $160 million for its owned portion of the project. . . .
