New Wind Farm Owners to Abide by Apex Agreement, Lighting Tower Delayed by Protest

By Jeremy Coumbes on November 22, 2021 at 1:25pm

The Lincoln Land Wind Project has been sold by Apex Clean Energy.

Danish renewable energy company Ørsted (YUR-sted) has acquired the company, according to a press release this morning. According to the deal, the Danish company acquired the wind farm from funds managed by Ares Management Corporation’s Infrastructure and Power strategy.

Ares had purchased the project from construction manager Apex Clean Energy, with the project going online on November 17th.

Morgan County Board of Commissioners Chairwoman Ginny Fanning said this morning that the Commissioners have had correspondence with Ørsted and they will have to follow all of the previous agreements that were contracted with Apex.

They are providing all of the necessary information that we need as far as a letter of credit, etc. The things that we had spelled out in our ordinance they of course will have to adhere to just as Apex did. So we are confident that it will continue with a company that is already in the wind farm industry. They have a proven record of running these and know how to operate a wind farm. So we are pleased that Ørsted will be stepping into that role.”

Fanning says that Ørsted also has experience with Aircraft Detection Lighting Systems which is still a go as planned for the Lincoln Land Wind Project.

We have the assurance that yes in fact the tower for the aircraft lighting detection system is being installed right now and will be operating. Ørsted already has some wind farms that use this technology. So as things go, we believe this change will be just fine for Morgan County.”

Fanning says as of the last update on the lighting project, all of the permitting has been approved and construction of the tower has begun. Fanning says the sale of the wind farm actually had nothing to do with the delay in breaking ground on the tower project.

There was a protest presented by Osage Indian’s that Apex had to go in and do a dig and do a study and then present those results to the Osage Indian Tribe, and they then signed off on it.”

Fanning says members of the Osage Nation believed that the land selected for the tower may have been on an Osage burial ground and therefore off-limits to construction. However, results from the study proved satisfactory and construction was allowed to proceed.

Ørsted officials estimate that the Aircraft Detection Lighting System will be completed and fully operational by sometime in January or early February.