ACCIONA’s Red Hills Wind Farm has been validated and registered under the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS), and listed on APX’s VCS Carbon Registry. It is the first wind farm to be validated on APX’s VCS Carbon Registry in the United States. The wind farm is constructed in Oklahoma. This state has no RPS and hence there is no possibility for generating compliance RECs.
TerraPass has entered into a contract with ACCIONA to purchase a portion of Voluntary Carbon Units (VCU) from the Red Hills wind project. The VCUs will be retired by TerraPass on behalf of its customers. Red Hill’s wind power project is expected to displace 0.67 metric tons of carbon dioxide for each megawatt-hour produced. This calculation was arrived at by using the UNFCCC Clean Development Mechanism methodology for renewable energy projects.
The Red Hills wind project is the first renewable energy project in the U.S. to be registered after validation that employed the same rigorous methodology that are used for renewable energy projects registered under the Kyoto Protocol’s flexibility mechanisms. The validation process for the project was lengthy with a third part confirming that the wind project met all the VCS’s requirements.
Erin Craig, CEO of TerraPass, said that the company’s customers wished to support renewable energy projects with their money and this project provides an opportunity to do that. Erin Craig added that Red Hills Wind Farm’s carbon reductions will be added to the company’s U.S. carbon offset projects portfolio.
With an investment of $252 million, the 123-MW Red Hills Wind Farm is the first wind farm to be entirely developed and installed by ACCIONA in the Oklahoma state. The project comprises 82 ACCIONA Windpower 1.5 MW turbines. The project is capable of generating electricity that is enough to power more than 40,000 U.S. households.
Source: www.acciona-na.com
