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Apple Wind Farm in Oregon Will Use 51 Vestas Turbines by Pete Danko Portland Business Journal, December 29, 2017

The wind farm in Oregon's Columbia River Gorge that will serve as Apple Inc.'s single biggest source of renewable energy will use turbines made by Vestas Wind Systems.

Vestas, the Danish company which makes wind turbines at four Colorado factories, said today that it is selling 51 of its largest, most advanced turbines to developer Avangrid Renewables for use at the Montague project.

Apple says Montague will provide it 560,000 megawatt-hours of electricity annually under a long-term power purchase agreement with Avangrid Renewables. That's equal to the electricity use of about 52,000 Oregon households.

The project is expected to be completed before the end of 2018.

Vestas, which employs about 300 people at its U.S. headquarters in Portland, Oregon, introduced the line of turbines that will be used at Montague in 2015 and has installed 27 around the world.

"We are pleased to add to our portfolio with Avangrid Renewables, and to grow the V136-3.45 MW turbine footprint in North America," said Chris Brown, president of Vestas' Portland operations. "It is especially meaningful to be part of a project in our home state of Oregon, and to be part of delivering low-cost, clean, job-generating energy to Oregonians."

Vestas led the nation in wind turbine orders for the first half of 2017, but the company's stock lost more than a third of its value in November after it reported that increasingly competitive bidding for projects was driving down the price of turbines.

The stock was also hurt by the possibility that the Republican tax bill would diminish the value of a key U.S. wind incentive. The final bill largely spared the industry, however.

Vestas employs 3,500 people at four factories in Colorado. The company couldn't say where the Montague components would be manufactured, but a spokeswoman said its "Colorado factories are currently installing and implementing V136 production lines to support the North American market."

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