Howard, the company’s vice president for wind development based in Houston. “Duke Energy expects 300 employees to work on the Los Vientos Windpower Project,” said Milton R. The positives for wind energy include additional jobs for the transportation industry, construction and assembly phases, business management and maintenance of the turbine units. Texas State Technical College (TSTC) Harlingen opened its Wind Energy Technology (WET) Program in 2010 to train entry-level technicians for the industry’s workforce along with TSTC West Texas, and a grant from the Governor’s Office allowed TSTC Harlingen and Del Mar College of Corpus Christi to welcome students to WET courses at the Renewable Energy Education Center in Ingleside during August 2011. The total height from tower base to blade tip will be a little more than 426 feet. The turbine towers will be 263 feet high with 328-foot diameter blades. The farm should include 84 Mitsubishi 2.4 megawatt turbines and 87 Siemens 2.7-megawatt turbines when complete.Į.ON Climate & Renewables of Austin broke ground about five miles east of Raymondville along Texas Highway 186 between Raymondville and San Perlita in November 2011 for 112 Vestas V100 1.8 megawatt wind turbines scheduled for installation. Equipment and materials arrived at a site near the intersection of Farm-to-Market Road 507 and FM 1081, approximately five or six miles east of Sebastian, late in 2011. Access roads across fields are being built for crews to reach the turbine sites and underground power lines will carry the electricity from the towers to existing utility lines.ĭuke Energy began construction of 171 wind turbines to produce 400 megawatts of electricity. The sites feature portable buildings, trucks, earth moving equipment and some cables.

Highway 77 through Willacy County will be within easy view of motorists.Ĭonstruction of wind energy farms are concentrated approximately five miles east of Raymondville toward San Perlita and five miles east of Sebastian at the intersection of Farm-to-Market (FM) Road 1081 and FM 507 is underway.

Towering turbines and blades to harvest the wind for electricity to power South Texas along a corridor east of U.S.

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