Iberdrola is USA's second largest wind-energy supplier
Iberdrola is USA's second largest wind-energy supplier
SPAIN'S national electricity board Iberdrola has become the second-largest producer of wind energy in the USA behind Nextera, Inc., with over 10% of the country's production to its name – nearly 6,000 megaWatts (mW), according to the company's latest figures.
Iberdrola generates over 50% of its worldwide wind power in the USA, eight years after entering the north American market with its purchase of Energy East and later acquisition of UIL, when it first floated its shares on the US stock market in Wall Street.
Corporate giants such as Facebook, Google and Walmart are increasing their demand more and more for 'green' energy, and wind farms in the US create enough power to supply 16.7 million homes.
Iberdrola is present in at least 20 states, and its greatest presence is in Texas – traditionally the country's largest oil-producer where petrol and other fossil fuels are dirt-cheap, attempting to enter the energy market would seem akin to selling coals to Newcastle, but Iberdrola has helped in turning the southern border state into the country's greatest wind-energy production base in less than 20 years.
The Peñascal complex is home to 269 Iberdrola-owned wind turbines and sits on part of a ranch owned by the John G. Kennedy Charitable Trust, 200 kilometres from Corpus Christi on the Mexican border.
Despite the tough competition – with petrol and fossil-fuel electricity being so cheap, Iberdrola has a difficult task in undercutting traditional forms of power – wind farms have taken off because constant gusts are a fact of life in Texas.
Throughout the day, at least until evening, wind blows persistently across the state from the Gulf of México, meaning Iberdrola's turbines are able to supply 210,000 homes in Texas alone
- double the number it powers in the southern-Spanish province of Huelva and close to that of a nuclear power station.
In total, Iberdrola has invested €1.2 billion in Texas, with the first two phases of the Peñascal park built in 2009 and 2010 using Mitsubishi aerogenerators, and the third finished at the end of this summer, operating with Gamesa engines – the most powerful of the two, allowing the turbines to produce a third more energy in the same wind conditions.
The ranch manager, Joe Stiles, says Texas relying on wind energy would have been 'unthinkable as little as 10 years ago'.
