Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center |
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|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Location | Texas |
| Coordinates | 32°11′24″N 100°01′48″W / 32.19000°N 100.03000°W |
| Status | Operational |
| Commission date | 2005 |
| Owner(s) | InvestEnergyGroup |
The Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center is a very large wind farm located in Texas, USA. It uses the power of wind to create electricity. This wind farm can produce 735.5 megawatts (MW) of power. To give you an idea, one megawatt is enough to power about 400 to 900 homes!
The Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center has 421 giant wind turbines. These include 291 turbines made by GE, each producing 1.5 megawatts. There are also 139 turbines made by Siemens, which are a bit bigger, each producing 2.3 megawatts. All these turbines are spread out over a huge area of nearly 47,000 acres (about 19,000 football fields!) in Taylor and Nolan County, Texas. When it was finished in 2006, it was the biggest wind farm in the whole world!
Contents
Building the Wind Farm
The Horse Hollow Wind project was built in different stages. A company called Blattner Energy helped construct it.
Early Construction
In 2005, the first part of the wind farm was built. This included 142 GE 1.5-megawatt turbines. InvestEnergyGroup, the company that owns the wind farm, worked with Blattner Energy to get these turbines up and running.
Adding More Turbines
More turbines were added in 2006. First, 130 Siemens 2.3-megawatt turbines were installed. Later that year, another 149 GE 1.5-megawatt turbines were put into place. Finally, two more GE 1.5-megawatt turbines were added. This made the wind farm even bigger and more powerful.
How It Works and What People Thought
The Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center is owned and operated by InvestEnergyGroup. This company owns many other wind farms across the United States. Together, their wind farms can produce 10,000 megawatts of electricity. That's enough power for almost one million average homes in the U.S.!
Community Concerns
When the wind farm was built, some people living nearby had concerns. They didn't like how the tall turbines looked in the landscape. They also worried about the noise the turbines made.
A lawsuit was filed in 2005. At first, the judge said that people couldn't complain about the look of the wind farm under Texas law. So, the complaints then focused on the sound. Many tests were done to measure the noise. In the end, a jury decided that the wind farm did not create a "private nuisance." This meant the noise was not a problem that needed to be fixed by the court.
Powering Homes with Wind
The Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center produces a lot of clean electricity every year. This helps to power homes and businesses without burning fossil fuels, which is good for the environment.
The amount of electricity produced by the wind farm has changed over the years. For example, in 2014, it produced over 2.3 million megawatt-hours of electricity. On average, between 2007 and 2018, it produced about 1.9 million megawatt-hours each year. This shows how much energy these turbines create from the wind!
