SunZia Wind is expected to be the largest wind project in the Western Hemisphere at over 3.5 GW. It will bring GE Vernova’s installed base with Pattern Energy in North America to approximately 4.3 GW upon completion.
The order was received in the fourth quarter of 2023 and upon completion is the largest single onshore wind turbine order ever received by GE Vernoa, both in terms of quantity of turbines and gigawatts of power generation.
“We are pleased to support Pattern Energy on this monumental project that reinforces the key role wind power has in delivering renewable energy to meet the growing demand for power in the Western US and in accelerating the energy transition” said Scott Strazik, CEO of GE Vernova. “The project is a great example of how the policy certainty created by the IRA is helping to drive significant investments in the US wind power market. I want to congratulate our teams across GE Vernova for all the work that has and will go into bringing a project of this scale and magnitude to life.”
Vic Abate, Chief Technology Officer, GE and CEO, GE Vernova’s Wind business, added that the project demonstrates GE Vernova’s ability to deliver on the company’s workhorse strategy in onshore wind – producing fewer variants in large quantities at scale to drive quality and reliability across the fleet for its customers.
“We are proud to partner with our customer, Pattern Energy, on this historic project that will deliver the critical renewable energy required to meet the growing demand for power in the Western US” said Mr Abate.
The 3.6-154 turbine is one of GE’s next generation workhorse products, designed specifically for the US, it is a highly efficient turbine an optimised size for ease of logistics and installation. The 3.6-154 is built on the back of the 2.8-127 – one of the best turbine models in the world over the last two years, according to the Woodmac 2022 OEM report, with more than 200 million operating hours of experience. The result of three years of research and development, this product is expected to bring recent innovations in turbine and blade design, including the digital blade certificate, an AI-trained blade manufacturing process designed to produce industry leading quality. GE has launched the 3.6-154 as the most tested and validated turbine in the company’s history – a robust turbine to power the domestic energy transition.
GE Vernova and Pattern Energy’s collaboration on SunZia spans the last 18 months and includes collaborative development and supply chain work to optimise site layouts and performance while minimising unnecessary variants – following GE Vernova’s workhorse philosophy.
“From the beginning this was a truly collaborative approach with GE to design an optimal site that maximises turbine performance and optimizes fleet consistency” said Hunter Armistead, CEO of Pattern Energy. “Nacelles and towers for the GE turbine are being domestically produced right here in the United States, helping SunZia create thousands of new jobs in manufacturing and construction. We’re proud to be building this milestone project together with GE that will bring clean energy to 3 million Americans.”
The project will be supplied through GE Vernova’s nacelle facility in Pensacola, Florida, as well as tower manufacturing facilities in Belen, New Mexico, Pueblo, Colorado, and Amarillo, Texas, reinforcing GE Vernova’s focus on taking full advantage of the Inflation Reduction Act to revitalise and enhance American manufacturing. GE Vernova announced in May of 2023 that it plans to invest $50 million and add 200 additional union jobs as part of creating a new manufacturing assembly line for its Onshore Wind business in Schenectady, New York, and announced that the first turbine was produced by that facility in November of 2023.
In support of this wind turbine mega deal, GE Vernova was able to provide Pattern Energy with both high tech consulting services (Consulting Services), and financial services (Financial Services) that contributed to the project’s launch.
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