A Major Wind Farm Planned off South Padre Island Coast
South Texas
Region - July 22, 2009
South Padre Island - A wind farm of 500-foot tall turbines that could power as many as 600,000 homes will be installed about 10 miles of South Padre Island and 25 miles from Brownsville, according to information from the Texas General Land Office.
The GLO announced July 16 that it has reached an agreement with Baryonyx Corp., a Houston-based green energy company, that could turn waters off the island coast into the nation’s biggest wind farm. Baryonyx Corp. was the sole bidder for the right to build a wind farm off the island’s eastern coast, GLO spokesman Jim Suydam said. Baryonyx will lease the land for $2.08 per acre and pay as much as 6.5 percent of the production revenue to the state’s Permanent School Fund. The school fund will get a royalty of 3.5 percent of the wind farm’s total production through the first eight years, according to the GLO’s press release. That percentage increases to 4.5 percent for the next eight years and peaks at 6.5 percent in the 17th year.
A date to begin construction of the wind farm has not been determined because Baryonyx, with the signed lease now in hand, can begin working out the project logistics, Suydam said. Still to be determined is whether the giant turbines will be transported to the offshore location by barge or an overland route close to the site and the job potential for the Rio Grande Valley, Suydam said. Although based in Houston, Baryonyx’s owners are from the United Kingdom.
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