Clean, renewable energy for West Virginia residents surged forward today when Clearway Energy Group selected the Bechtel-Reed & Reed Joint Venture, to build its Black Rock wind farm in Grant County and Mineral counties. The new wind farm represents a nearly 15% increase in the state's wind power and will produce enough green energy to power 34,000 homes.
The Bechtel-Reed & Reed team, will engineer, procure, and construct the farm. The project will include twenty-three Siemens-Gamesa SG 5.0-145 wind turbines on 107.5-meter tall towers, producing 115 MW of electricity at the point interconnection to the First Energy electrical grid.
"We're excited to partner with Bechtel and Reed & Reed and look forward to potential that their combined resources can bring to this critical project," said Chris Fox, Vice President of Construction at Clearway Energy Group. "This represents Clearway’s second renewable project in West Virginia, and provides a great opportunity for us to add construction jobs and permanent positions to our existing workforce in the state. Black Rock represents an important and growing sector of West Virginia’s economy and we are proud to help drive that growth.”
"The Black Rock Wind Farm is a significant contribution to renewable wind production in the region, and we are delighted to have Reed & Reed as partners and we are eager to join Clearway Energy Group on their path to deliver clean energy for future generations," said Kelvin Sims, Bechtel's Infrastructure general manager, Americas. “Our customers are setting ambitious targets to decarbonize energy systems, and we’re excited to support them in their journey to net-zero.”
“Our partnership with Bechtel combines two leading companies in the new world economy of renewable energy. All of us at Reed & Reed are pleased to begin work on this project with our partners from Bechtel. It’s a chance to demonstrate our expertise and experience in wind projects in a new region. We are especially pleased to have been selected by Clearway to build such an important project,” said Jackson Parker, CEO of Reed & Reed, Inc.
The project will create around 200 jobs in the area during construction, with several permanent jobs when operational. Once the wind farm is active, currently scheduled for late 2021, it will save 298,500 metric tons of CO2 emissions.
