Blue Creek onshore wind farm

Blue Creek, a benchmark in the development of onshore wind in the US

Our presence in the United States is part of a growth story with facilities such as Blue Creek, which became operational in 2012 in northwest Ohio through our US subsidiary, Avangrid*. This wind farm has a total installed capacity of 304 MW and can power around 76,000 homes per year. Avangrid Renewables was the first company to start construction in a state that lacked modern, commercial-scale wind projects.

The Blue Creek wind farm takes advantage of Ohio's intense winds and coexists with agricultural fields in the townships of Tully, Union and Hoaglin in Van Wert County, and in the towns of Benton, Blue Creek and Latty in Paulding County. At the time of its completion in early 2012, it was the largest single-phase project in the US wind fleet powered by Avangrid Renewables among a total of 50 projects.

Blue Creek consists of 152 Gamesa G90 wind turbines, each of which has an output of 2 MW and can power about 500 Ohio homes. Most of the equipment was manufactured and assembled in Wisconsin, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania and North Dakota.

Although the project covers an area of almost 80 square miles (207.2 square kilometres), the total impact of the project is less than 1 acre (equivalent to 4,047 square metres) per turbine, including access roads and the maintenance building.

* AVANGRID, Inc. is 81.50 % owned by Iberdrola, S. A.

Local economic benefits and environmental friendliness

Blue Creek represents a $600 million private investment. The project pays around USD 2 million annually in lease payments to local landowners and USD 2.7 million to local taxing bodies. Avangrid Renewables is the largest taxpayer in Van Wert County, where 75 % of the Blue Creek wind farm is located. 

In addition, our commitment to environmental friendliness is present in each of our projects. That's why Blue Creek offsets its customers' carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 725,000 tonnes per year. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, this is equivalent to planting approximately 138,000 acres of trees, taking 114,000 cars off the road or eliminating the consumption of more than 2.1 million barrels of oil. The project also avoids the consumption of 408 million gallons (more than one trillion litres) of water per year.

Iberdrola, world leader in renewable energies

At Iberdrola, we decided to commit to renewable energies more than two decades ago as a fundamental pillar on which to build our safe, clean and competitive business model. Thanks to this vision, we are today world leaders in renewable energies, reaching 42,387 MW of renewables in operation  after Q1 2024.

This commitment is reflected in our Strategic Plan, in which we will allocate €15.5bn gross to renewables. More than half of this amount is focused on offshore wind in the US, UK, France and Germany; 28% on onshore wind and 18% on solar.