Roscoe Wind Complex

Overview

Four Wind Farms on Leased Cotton Land West of Abilene

E.ON Climate & Renewables (EC&R) built Roscoe in four phases between 2007 and October 2009 for more than $1B: 627 turbines on nearly 100,000 acres leased from as many as 400 landowners, most of them dryland cotton farmers who kept farming between the pads. Local farmer Cliff Etheredge helped organize the leases. At completion, the 781.5 MW complex passed the 735.5 MW Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center in Taylor and Nolan counties as the largest wind farm in the world, until California's Alta Wind Energy Center overtook it in 2012.

RWE took over the complex in 2019, when it absorbed E.ON's renewables business. Roscoe averaged a 31.7% capacity factor and about 2,170 GWh a year from 2011 to 2017, enough for more than 250,000 Texas homes. Output moves east to Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio over the Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) lines, about 3,600 miles of 345-kV transmission that Texas finished in 2014 at a cost of roughly $7B.

The Farms

Three Turbine Makers Across Four Phases

Each phase entered service as it was finished, using whatever turbines EC&R could buy during the 2007-2009 supply crunch: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries 1.0 MW units at Roscoe and Inadale, Siemens 2.3 MW units at Champion, and GE 1.5 MW units at Pyron.

Repowering

Pyron and Champion Repowered, Rivian Signed for Champion

GE Vernova repowered Pyron near Hermleigh in 2024, swapping all 166 machines for 1.6 MW units and lifting the farm from 249 MW to 265.6 MW on the existing towers, roads, leases and substation. At Champion, M.A. Mortenson began work in 2024 to fit 41 existing towers with new US-made Siemens Gamesa nacelles and blades and add six new 3.1 MW turbines; RWE scheduled completion for mid-2025. REGEN Fiber of Iowa grinds the old blades into reinforcement for concrete and asphalt.

On October 31, 2024, RWE signed a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Rivian for the output of the repowered 127 MW Champion farm, to supply the Rivian Adventure Network of fast chargers. RWE puts Champion's new tax payments at about $31M over 20 years. Roscoe and Inadale still run their original 2008-2009 Mitsubishi turbines, the oldest machines in the complex.

Region

Part of the Abilene-Sweetwater Wind Belt Feeding New Data Center Load

Roscoe sits among the largest West Texas wind farms of the 2006-2010 build: Horse Hollow, Capricorn Ridge and the Sweetwater farms in Nolan, Taylor, Coke and Sterling counties. The same ERCOT region now hosts the OpenAI and Oracle Stargate Abilene campus built by Crusoe on Lancium's site, and IREN's Sweetwater campus in Nolan County. Those campuses buy from the ERCOT market and from on-site generation; none holds a disclosed PPA with Roscoe.

Federal law now limits new wind credits: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (2025) ends the production and investment tax credits for wind projects not placed in service by the end of 2027 unless construction began by July 4, 2026. Repowering of Roscoe and Inadale turns on that deadline and on new PPAs.

Related coverage

Related Coverage

• Texas Energy Nexus
• ERCOT Energy Sovereignty
• Stargate Abilene
• Rodeo Ranch Energy Storage
• Samson Solar Energy Center
• Southern Spirit HVDC