March 22, 2016
- By Paul Joseph, Paragon Communications News Director -
Actual construction of the planned North Rim Wind Energy Farm near Erick has been postponed and may not actually start until 2017.
Even though the development of the project is on track, wind farm officials appear to be waffling over starting the project.
According to a senior development manager with APEX Clean Energy, Dave Savage, background work is still being conducted in anticipation of building the 300 megawatt farm along the northern edge of what most area residents call, “the breaks,” where the topography of the land would complement a wind farm.
The wind farm, still planned for construction, would be constructed along the breaks. That’s where the natural slope causes southern winds to flow along the Palo Duro Canyon in Western Oklahoma to suddenly shoot skyward over the north rim, thus the name, North Rim. The North Rim area is about five-miles wide and 35-miles deep and runs from Delhi to south of Texola.
What made the project more attractive, at first, were a couple of tax exemptions. Before the project can get out of the ground, a five year ad valorem exemption will be disappearing at the end of this year.
Savage says the other one may disappear as the Oklahoma Legislature looks into eliminating many other state business exemptions in order to close a $1.3 billion dollar gap in the upcoming fiscal budget for the state.
Savage says project officials already knew the ad valorem exemption was ending but felt that was a concession they could live with as long as they could still apply for the Oklahoma production tax credit exemption. But now, with the discussion of doing away with many state exemptions, wind farm officials are leery to be in much of a hurry at this time until the legislature makes some decisions.
Area leaders as well as the area’s legislative leaders want the project to go forward especially considering the number of jobs the wind farm would bring, both during construction and after it’s built.
The project will employ about 125 workers directly during the construction phase as 150 turbines will be built inside 38-thousand acres that has been leased for the project, according to Savage.
Oklahoma State Senator Darcy Jech says Savage is right that the legislature is discussing the elimination of certain tax credits but says those exemptions that are still serving the purpose which they were intended will remain in all likelihood.
Jech says he’s not sure if APEX has reason to be concerned about the future of certain tax credits but he’d like to the opportunity to talk to APEX if they’re having second thoughts about the construction of the wind farm.
APEX has two other large, 300-megawattt projects going in the state and another two slated for development. The engineering company has become the most active developer in the state of Oklahoma.
A 300-megawatt wind farm can power up to 90,000 homes.
- 30 -