Energy-generating upgrade: Twin Ridges project to boost existing windmill farm, add jobs

MEYERSDALE, Pa. – From the Southampton Township hillside where towering Twin Ridges windmills stand, it was hard to tell a handful feature longer blades than a similar crop nearby.

But the nearly 200-foot-long blades and other components being retrofitted at the 68 windmill site in the coming months will bolster the farm’s energy production by more than 30%, Exus Renewables CEO Jim Spencer said.

When the 139 megawatt wind farm was first built in 2012, it was celebrated as one of the state’s largest wind energy producers.

Thanks to improved technology, the project’s total output will add an additional 42 megawatts – enough to power 32,000 more homes, the Pittsburgh-based company said.

And without digging up land or adding even one more windmill, Spencer added.

“We’re proud that this has been – and will continue to be – a great project for the local community,” Spencer said, noting that the investment will ensure the turbines will keep spinning another 30 years.

Twin Ridges’ windmills have operated for well over a decade along the Appalachian countryside that encompasses part of Northampton, Southampton, Larimer and Greenville townships.

Exus’ official predecessor, EverPower, developed the project as one of the state’s largest in 2012.

The $200 million investment, which would add new American-made hubs, blades and adaptor components, will provide work for 150 union construction employees now through the end of the year – the project’s completion date, Exus partner Mike Speerschneider said.

Danilo Prieto, of Colorado-based blade-maker Vestas, said the revamped wind farm will also mean the creation of eight more jobs in Somerset County for his crews, who’ll work to service and maintain the windmills once they begin operating later this year.

State Rep. Carl Walker Metzgar, R-Somerset, said that’s an important factor for a region feeling the effects of a changing energy industry.

Walker is a pro-coal lawmaker who has spent years advocating for the industry on the state’s House coal caucus – often at odds with state and federal policies to minimize the resource’s power generation role in the wholesale PJM energy market that supplies the mid-Atlantic.

That hasn’t changed, he said, noting he’s still pushing in Harrisburg to level the PJM playing field for coal.

But Metzgar said he also recognizes there’s job opportunities in the wind industry.

These days, he’s seeing Somerset County natives who once spent their days digging for energy-producing coal underground now climbing towers to repair windmills.

“We’ve lost a lot of coal jobs over the years, and this is an opportunity for some of those guys,” Metzgar said.

“We also have landowners getting royalties from these (turbines) so it is having an impact on our local economy,” Metzgar said.

In changing – even difficult – times, “you have to adapt,” he added.

Spencer said the Twin Ridges farm upgrades are just one many that will improve the energy-producing output of Pennsylvania windmills in the coming years.