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• Time of issue:2013-09-30 15:48
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(Summary description)Supported by the Obama administration's Climate Action Plan, construction of the largest federally funded wind farm to date began recently at Pantex Plate Military Base in Amarillo, Texas. The 11.5 megawatt wind farm, consisting of five turbines, is expected to meet 60 percent of the site's electricity needs and reduce carbon emissions by more than 35,000 tons a year, equivalent to the combined emissions of 7,200 cars, according to officials. Pantex Plate is an important nuclear weapons loading, handling, maintenance and storage site for the United States. The federal government is the largest energy user in the United States, and the Obama administration has set new and higher targets, building on the 15 percent reduction in carbon emissions achieved by federal agencies throughout the Obama years: Pantex Plate is the latest milestone in a strategy to generate 20 percent of the government's electricity from renewable sources by 2020, with the large-scale deployment of wind as a key component. The wind farm, which covers 1,500 acres and has a total generating capacity of 47 million kilowatt-hours per year, is scheduled for completion in 2014. The plant is being built by Siemens, a longtime partner of the federal government, as part of a $2 billion future revenue-based partnership, under which the federal government pays for construction costs in installments based on energy savings from future wind farm operations. Thus, it effectively avoids the financial pressure brought by large-scale investment in the initial stage of electric field construction and realizes the double benefits of protecting taxpayers' interests and steadily advancing the new energy strategy.