Ørsted nears 1GW in southwest US with completed Kansas project
Ørsted nears 1GW in south-west US with completed Kansas project | Windpower Monthly
Danish energy major Ørsted has completed work on a 200MW onshore wind project in Kansas, bringing its operational capacity in the region to nearly 1GW.
The 200MW Sunflower Wind project, in Clarion County, Kansas, is the developer's 13th operational wind farm in the US.
Sunflower Wind is comprised of 76 GE2.82-127 turbines. Ørsted has signed power purchase agreements, including with Amcor, PepsiCo and Levi Strauss for Sunflower Wind.
Completion of the project brings Ørsted to 832MW of operational capacity in the south-west region of the US.
According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), Kansas generated half its in-state electricity from renewables in 2022, almost of all of which was from wind power. Kansas is in the top five US states for wind energy capacity and had over 8.2GW of installed wind capacity at the start of 2023, according to Windpower Intelligence, Windpower Monthly's data and research division
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: hydropower
Hydropower — electricity generated by turbines capturing energy from moving water — was for many years the primary contributor of renewable energy to the U.S. electricity grid. Its growth was rapid into the 1970s, and since then has offered a stable supply of power, while a declining share of all generation. For many years, hydropower was seen as clean energy and an unalloyed good, but a greater understanding of the impact of dams on ecosystems and wildlife has led to the removal of some dams. As of 2019, hydropower trails wind as a renewable source of power generation.