wpd is developing a conceptual design of a ‘hybrid system project’ wind farm, combining wind energy, solar energy and storage technology.

The project, named Horse Heaven, is a merger of two wind energy projects in Benton County, Washington State, Northwest USA, originally designed separately by wpd and Scout Clean Energy.

In the market-oriented adaptation of the project, Scout sold the assets of the project in 2019, including interconnection queue positions, land leases and wind data.

These assets were combined with those owned by Scout to better place the hybrid wind-solar-storage project on the market. With Scout as the project operator, the two companies continue to collaborate in the construction of the Horse Heaven project, which is driven by a cooperation agreement establishing wpd as a long-term investor.

The Horse Heaven project has now been revamped and further expanded to extend the overall concept of the wind farm to include solar and battery storage elements. The concept behind this is to build the project as a hybrid system.

By integrating individual system components–wind energy, solar energy and storage technologies – the goal is to stabilize grids, increase efficiency and boost the viability of the overall project and make it more appealing for future PPA negotiations.

Thanks in part to technical developments, economic conditions are now in place for the introduction of a solar energy storage project in the tri-city metropolitan area, south of the cities of Kennewick, Richland and Pasco.

The combination of renewable energy generation and green energy storage at one location makes it possible to ensure that electricity from renewable energy is generated at a much higher availability rate, regardless of individual wind and solar radiation.

The Horse Heaven project would therefore be able to provide a total of 850 MW of wind, solar and battery power.

The project is expected to be launched in two phases: phase 1 is expected to begin operations no earlier than late-2022, while phase 2 is expected to begin operations no earlier than late-2023.

“In cooperation with Scout, we look to optimize and maximize the project for the community and the region.”

Niclas Fritsch, board of wpd wind projects.

“By combining assets and advancing a hybrid project ‘Horse Heaven’ can bring low cost, flexible, renewable resources to the local grid, and reach another milestone for clean energy supply in the region.”

Jeffrey Wagner, wpd CEO.