Wind farms migrating from land to sea. The wind farm offshore from Mustang Island, which could be one of the largest such installations in the nation, will provide jobs for up to 200 people in the construction phase and some 50 long-term jobs when fully operational, according to the company that will build and operate the wind farm, told The Record this week.

But, don’t quit your day job just yet.

The engineering and environmental study connected with the project could take “at least two years,” a spokesman for Baryonyx Corp. said.

And then?

“The construction phase could extend from three to five years,” said Peter Sills, director of communications for the Houston-based Baryonyx.

These are not mere “off-the-top-of-the-head” guesses. Baryonyx has some solid experience in building and operating wind farms that produce electricity from wind. It has designed, consented and financed an offshore wind farm in the East Irish Sea off the North West Coast of the United Kingdom. It uses “similar offshore wind turbine technology that is under consideration for the Texas offshore projects,” said Sills.

Plans for the projects were announced last month.

“The project team has some 10 years experience in both onshore and offshore wind farm development in addition to extensive experience in offshore oil and gas development,” Sills pointed out.

The company will also bring in engineering contractors with extensive international offshore oil, gas and wind design and construction experience, the spokesman said..

Besides the wind farm off Mustang Island, the company will also design, build and operate a similar project on South Padre Island off Cameron County and the first wind-powered data center in the Texas Panhandle near Stratford.

The Mustang Island project will be six miles offshore on 19,000 acres of ocean where the water is 60 to 75 feet deep. If the Kleberg-Nueces county line were extended offshore, it would pass roughly on the southern boundary of the project site.

Electricity will be generated by between 170 and 225 turbines, or wind towers.

The turbines planned for the project are large, modern class 4 turbines with rotors 413 feet in diameter sitting atop towers 328 feet (100 meters) high. The turbines rotate at 6.9 to 12.1 revolutions per minute.

The rotors start operating at wind speeds of about 8 miles per hour and reach maximum power output at winds speeds of about 31 mph. At gale-force winds (in excess of 67 mph) the wind turbines shut down.

When fully operational, the project off Mustang Island alone will produce enough electricity to power up to 320,000 homes and businesses, or a minimum of 750 megawatts. To put that in perspective, the Kingsville Economic Development Council’s latest figures report 10,996 households exist in the city plus the businesses to support those families. Doing the arithmetic, that means the Mustang Island wind farm alone will produce enough power to light, heat and cool 25 communities roughly the size of Kingsville.

Of course, not all, if any, of the power produced at that farm will do its magic in Kingsville. Power generated at the wind farm off Mustang Island will enter the vast electrical grid, or interconnected network, that delivers electricity to consumers everywhere.

Each site will include a highly secure data center powered by the on-site wind turbines. “At today’s prices,” says spokesman Sills, “each fully-developed project would cost in the range of $4 billion to $6 billion, depending on the scale of the project that may be approved under the Environmental Impact Assessment.”

Production of that document will be Job One. The full environmental impact statement will be prepared by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, with data provided by Baryonyx, Sills said. “The data submitted during this process will include specific investigations on avian (birds and bats), visual, aviation and maritime navigation aspects.”

It will be in this process where the U.S. Navy’s radar concerns will be addressed, as will fears that the towers will some day be abandoned. Wind farms are regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration. and need approval from the Texas Public Utility Commission before connecting to the power grid.

“We expect this initial phase to take at least two years,” Sills said. “Once approved, construction could commence within the following year,” he continued. “The construction phase could extend from three to five years, depending on the supply chain and the extent of the consented project.”

Residents in Kingsville, Corpus Christi and other interested places will be part of the project’s development. The company’s chief executive officer is Ian Hatton, and he told The Record this week that local comment will be sought.

“Baryonyx intends to communicate its development plans” Hatton said, “and report the results of environmental analysis to people who reside in Kingsville and other communities surrounding the offshore projects and get their feedback on the proposal over the next two years.”

After environmental assessment and consultation with interested parties, an application will be made for approval to construct the projects, the company said.

Why Mustang Island? “Proximity to port facilities was an important consideration in the selection of the offshore project locations,” said spokesman Sills. “The projects can also make use of Gulf of Mexico oil and gas industry fabrication and construction resources.”

He said the projects represent a significant supply-chain and employment opportunity.

The concession or lease of the offshore site was awarded Baryonyx following a competitive auction process, Sills explained. “The bid price was $2.08 per acre per annum,” he said. That means Baryonyx will pay the state of Texas about $39,500 per year for the Mustang Island site alone and a similar sum for the South Padre Island site off Cameron County.

When the wind farm becomes operational and Baryonyx begins selling power generated there, payment to the state will be based on revenue royalty. “Once built, the two offshore wind farms will earn the school children of Texas a minimum of $338 million over the 30-year lease, the General Land Office said.

The state land office says Baryonyx will pay a minimum royalty of 3.5 percent of the farms’ total production.

The royalty will increase to 4.5 percent in the ninth year of the lease and to 6.5 percent in the 17th year.

That money will go into the state’s Permanent School Fund, said Jerry Patterson, commissioner of the Texas General Land Office which manages state lands. “With these leases,” Patterson said, “we’re turning green power into green cash for the state’s Permanent School Fund.”

Patterson says using development of environmentally friendly power to benefit education makes sense.

“Developing wind energy for Texas is ‘just plain smart,” he said.

“It’s not just sustainable energy to power our businesses, it’s sustainable funding for public education too.”

Earnings in the Permanent School Fund are distributed to the state’s school districts on the basis of average daily attendance per district.

These two offshore wind leases bring the number of the state’s leases for offshore wind farms to six.

The other wind tracts are near Jefferson, Calhoun, Brazoria and Cameron counties. The tracts total 73,098 acres in size and range in size from 12,240 to 23,040 acres. No turbines have been constructed yet, the land office said.

The data centers on the sites are facilities where governments and businesses house computer systems offsite in a secure area. The site will include a Tier 4 date center, the most secure type designed to host systems with fully redundant subsystems and compartmentalized security zones controlled by biometric access.