Chicago-based renewable energy developer and engineering firm PivotGen will now offer wind project “repowering” services as part of its core offerings. The three-year-old firm specializes in renewable energy development and optimizing existing wind assets to maximize performance and extend their operational life.
Repowering is the process of upgrading aging wind turbines with newer, more efficient technology, and is seen as essential for extending the lives of existing wind projects, while increasing their output and reducing ongoing operating costs. PivotGen offers a unique and proprietary process of leveraging financial, technical, and operational resources to offer a repowering solution customized down to the site, and at times turbine and component level. The objective of the process is to maximize the value to the owner while minimizing the waste of the repower. As wind turbines age, they become less efficient due to mechanical degradation and technological obsolescence. In addition to underproducing their potential, age-related declines can reduce grid reliability and decrease returns to investors, while also underutilizing existing interconnection agreements.
A recent report from Newmark highlights the growing energy demands of U.S. data centers, which currently consume approximately 17 GW of power. Projections indicate that this figure could double to 35 GW by 2030, reflecting a substantial rise in national data center power requirements over the next decade. Additionally, over 2 terawatts’ worth of renewable projects are currently awaiting approval in U.S. interconnection queues, which is expected to take over four years to process by the overburdened grid operators. Once approved, new substations and transmission infrastructure are typically required before new interconnections can be made, causing further delays and costs to renewable project deployment. Repowering offers an efficient, rapid and cost-effective way to ensure existing wind power sites continue to produce at maximum capacity, ensuring uninterrupted power to accommodate this growing power demand.
“Repowering is complex and highly variable from project to project; we know this with the team having repowered over 2 GW of wind projects,” said Tim Rosenzweig, PivotGen’s co-founder and CEO. “Our goal in providing this offering as-a-service to third parties is to leverage our unique expertise repowering a wide variety of turbines across the country to maximize grid reliability and investor returns while maintaining and improving clean renewable energy for the grid.”
There are over 50 GW of U.S. onshore wind projects 10 years or older, which, according to Rosenzweig, could benefit from improved operational and financial performance through implementation of strategic fleet modernization measures. Doing so will help offset declines in onshore wind additions while ensuring that existing project owners will continue optimizing project investments.
News item from PivotGen
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