National Wind, a Minneapolis-based developer wind energy projects, and KRS Energy, a Colorado-based wind energy development company, have launched Buffalo Wind Energy, a utility-scale, community wind project located in west central Randall County. The Buffalo Wind Project plans to develop up to 300MW of wind energy.
Buffalo Wind Energy currently has 14,500 acres under lease between the towns of Amarillo and Umbarger along with the direct participation of 12 area families.
The 12 families appointed four individuals to represent the development as the project’s board of advisors. The Buffalo Wind Project board of advisors is made up of David Christian, Randy Darnell, Todd Vincent, and Casey Fox.
Throughout the last year, the board of advisors, along with James Wester, a local attorney, has worked in tandem with National Wind and KRS Energy to structure the project and build local interest and participation in the Buffalo Wind Project.
Travis Moen, project developer of National Wind, said: ”This is National Wind’s first Texas wind project and we are excited to work with KRS Energy to introduce landowners to our community wind model.
”Although Texas has more installed wind projects than any other state, it has little community wind development. Studies show that community wind projects increase local economic impacts up to five times more than that of non community-based projects.
”Also, this is a very interesting project because of its unique transmission access that provides potential to sell power into the ERCOT market and the Southern Power Pool (SPP).”