Generating wind-powered megawatts in windy Wyoming

The state of Wyoming, more known for its huge reserves of coal, is moving into renewable energy, the most recent example being Innergex’s 330 MW Boswell Springs wind power project, the company’s second largest wind farm in North America.

By Paul MacDonald

When it comes to energy, the state of Wyoming is truly at the head of the pack.

For decades, Wyoming has been a leader in providing American utility companies with the coal that powers American power plants, and keeps the U.S. economy humming.

In recent years, though, Wyoming has been one of the leading states in developing renewable energy, as more wind and solar power has been produced in the Cowboy State. And longer term, the sparsely populated state—the entire state, at about 584,000 people, has fewer people than Louisville, Kentucky—could produce huge amounts of renewable power for other more populous states, such as California.

A recent renewable energy addition came last year, with Innergex’s $534 million, 330 MW Boswell Springs wind project. It is, in fact, the company’s second largest wind farm in North America, just behind its 350 MW Foard City wind project in Texas. The company, which develops and builds renewable energy projects, currently has 90 facilities in operation, with 4,662 MW of installed capacity in the U.S., Canada, France and Chile.

The Boswell Springs project is located in Albany County, in the southeastern part of the state. The county borders on Colorado. The nearest town is Rock River, about 40 miles northwest of the city of Laramie.

The project site itself spans about 21,500 acres of private land which is largely undeveloped, and used for grazing cattle. The project, and its wind turbines, uses a small fraction of that land base, allowing the grazing to continue, virtually uninterrupted.

The almost 100 GE wind turbines on the project have power generation of 1,160 gigawatt-hours/year, enough to power 113,000 Wyoming households. The electricity being produced by the Boswell Springs wind project is being sold under a 30-year, 320 MW busbar Power Purchase Agreement with PacifiCorp, a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary.

Julie Turgeon, Vice-President of Construction for Innergex, noted that the company had been working on the Boswell Springs wind project for several years. As with any major renewable energy company, she explained that Innergex has a number of projects in the pipeline at any point, and that projects move ahead as the company deals with any development matters, and lines up an offtaker, as it did with PacifiCorp.

“From there, it depends a lot on the project how we approach it, choosing the type of wind turbines and securing equipment beforehand, or not—it’s site specific, and we have different strategies around different projects,” she explained.

Innergex’s renewable energy facilities are developed and operated with adherence to environmental guidance and regulations from agencies, development codes and best practices. On Boswell Springs, a series of studies and surveys on environmental resources was conducted over a number of years, including birds, plants, animals, cultural resources and socioeconomics to understand project constraints and setback to make informed decisions to minimize, mitigate or avoid environmental impacts.

While Boswell Springs represents the company’s first project in Wyoming, Innergex has other renewable projects in the region. It has the Horseshoe Bend 9.5 MW run of river project and the 138 MW Mountain Air wind project in neighboring Idaho, to the west.

Turgeon explained that Wyoming, generally, has large private landholdings, so they only had to deal with one landowner for the Boswell Springs project. This compares with some other U.S. states where there can be more landowners to deal with because individual land ownership is in smaller acreages, and is agricultural land that is used to grow crops vs. the grazing land in Wyoming. There were several landowners they had to deal with in construction of the 34.5-mile transmission line.

As with all the projects Innergex is involved with, the company works with landowners to keep them informed as projects are developed and built.

“It’s really a partnership,” Turgeon says. “We are going to be using their land and we want to make sure the project is implemented the way they want it—for example, if there are any areas they want to protect or areas where uses need to be accommodated.

“We have a continuous relationship with the landowners—when we are on site during construction, and after a project is built, they know exactly who is in charge of the project for Innergex.”

They also work closely with local communities, such as Rock River or Medicine Bow. These towns of about 250 people each were closely consulted on what the project would involve, and a number of community meetings were held. This is especially important with smaller towns as a project involves hundreds of huge trucks containing turbine equipment going through, or near, nearby towns.

Turgeon explained that being a good neighbor is a priority for Innergex. It has a long and successful track record of developing and operating high quality, environmentally responsible and socially acceptable renewable projects across the U.S.—and around the world. The company will be the long term operator of Boswell Springs.

When building projects, Innergex works to maximize local benefits, giving preference to hiring local people, consultants and contractors. Boswell Springs is expected to contribute $79 million in property taxes, $34 million in wind generation taxes and $19 million in sales and use taxes over its 30-year lifespan.

Turgeon noted the area lends itself to wind power.

“It’s pretty flat ranch land with quite a good constant wind, she said. “The wind resource is pretty stable because there are no obstacles, no mountains and few trees.”

Innergex arranged for the two main power transformers on the project, and dealt directly with GE for supplying the turbines. Mortenson was the EPC on the Boswell Springs project. Its scope of work included access roads, foundations, underground collection, substation, and erection of the almost 100 turbines. The project involved building 12 miles of new road, and upgrading some 20 miles of existing road.

	Mortenson was the EPC on the Innergex Boswell Springs project. Its scope of work included access roads, foundations, underground collection, substation, and erection of the almost 100 turbines. The project involved building 12 miles of new road, and upgrading some 20 miles of existing road.

Crane company Bigge’s heavy-lift cranes were integral to turbine erection on the project. Its fleet, which includes eight cranes—four Crawler Cranes and four Rough Terrain Cranes—was on-site for five months. The Liebherr LR1800 cranes, equipped with a 325’ main boom and 49’ jib, are specifically designed to handle the demanding challenges of wind turbine construction. The turbines are aligned in north to south rows on the project site.

American Energy Inc. (AEI) built the 230 kV transmission line that connected with the PacifiCorp network. The project’s power connects into the PacifiCorp power grid at the PacifiCorp Freezeout substation in Carbon County, Wyoming, about 35 miles west of the wind project, via the Last Mile Transmission project.

Turgeon stressed that co-ordination and communication is key on such a large project, with two major contractors and, at peak, 300 construction workers on site.

“Our team’s job is to ensure that all the pieces are aligned, and if there are changes, we communicate that. We meet on a daily basis, look at the work that is going on that day, and forecast what work is coming up. During construction, Innergex had a crew of four people who basically moved their lives to be nearby for the duration of the project.”

Jason Sirois, who was the site engineer on site, is an example—he lives in the Canadian province of British Columbia, and moved to Wyoming for the project. Sirois has experience in building wind, solar and hydro projects.

“Our Innergex people bring outside the box expertise so when the teams are facing challenges or the contractors are facing challenges, we can bring a focus to completing the project, and deliver a reliable project that is going to be working for 35 years to the Innergex operating group,” says Turgeon.

Innergex and its contractors brought plenty of skill and resourcefulness to building the project, with some unexpected high winds.

“Usually the summer is more of a quiet time in wind in this area, so you can install the turbines then,” explained Turgeon. “But we faced alot of high winds in the spring and summer.

“But Innergex and its contractors and people brought ideas to deal with this, and we started to do erection work at night,” she said. “That is where people bring cohesion and team spirit to a project, and figure out innovative ways to make sure we deliver the project on time.”

Crane company Bigge’s heavy lift cranes were integral to turbine erection on the Innergex Wyoming project. Its fleet, which includes eight cranes—four Crawler Cranes and four Rough Terrain Cranes—was on-site for five months. The Liebherr LR1800 cranes are specifically designed to handle the demanding challenges of wind turbine construction.

When asked about the biggest challenges the project faced, Turgeon had a quick response: “Weather, weather, weather.”

“With winter, you never know when it’s going to start.” When it was in full swing, they had upwards of seven feet of snow in some areas on the site, because of snow drifts. Roads can close in this area of Wyoming due to heavy snow, and at times they had to obtain special permits to continue to use some roads during construction.

“We had a small time window for the work and we had a buffer, but because of the high winds and the winter weather, that window got smaller,” says Turgeon. But pulling together, they were able to complete the project before the window closed—and on time.

Having experienced people and contractors is a solid plus for any project, and often things go smoothly. But when a project runs into challenges that’s when people rise to the occasion, and really put their talents to work.

While there will be changes to renewable energy-related legislation with the new Trump Administration, Innergex tapped into Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding, introduced by the Biden Administration, for Boswell Springs. The project is potentially eligible for up to 120 percent of Production Tax Credits (PTC), which includes a 10 percent Energy Community PTC Bonus and a 10 percent Domestic Content PTC Bonus. The project is eligible to benefit from the Energy Community Tax Credit PTC Bonus due to its location in an “energy community”, as defined in the Inflation Reduction Act. The eligibility for the 10 percent Domestic Content PTC Bonus is currently being evaluated, which should further enhance the profitability of the project.

There is more to come for Wyoming wind power, and there are still plenty of wind resources to tap into in the state. According to the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), southeast Wyoming has one of the densest concentrations of high class wind energy potential in the country. NREL data shows that over 50 percent of the best quality (Class 6 and 7) wind capacity in the continental U.S. is located in Wyoming. This Class 6 and 7 wind resource has an energy potential of 235,000 GWh/yr.

Wyoming’s geography of high-altitude prairies with broad ridges makes the state an ideal site for the development of wind resources. Plans indicate that thousands of megawatts of generation are coming in the Cowboy State’s wind alleys of Albany, Carbon and Converse counties, for instance.

Construction work has already started on the 600-turbine, 3,000 MW Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind farm in Wyoming, with its $5-billion price tag. It will become the largest wind project in the U.S. when it is completed. In the specific Chokecherry and Sierra Madre proposed project area, NREL data shows the wind power resource potential as “excellent,” “outstanding” and “superb.”

As for Innergex, the Boswell Springs wind project was officially commissioned in January 2025, and the company is working on developing renewable energy projects in other places. It recently completed a power storage project in Chile, and has announced wind power projects in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Quebec, the latter with Hydro-Québec and Indigenous Communities. Hydro-Québec is a major power exporter to the northeast U.S.

Innergex has other U.S. wind and solar projects in its project pipeline. It currently has renewable energy operations in six U. S. states including—now—Wyoming.