Development

The Company has a dedicated development team of 40 employees with strong experience and specialization in different aspects of project development.  Brian Evans, who leads the team, has been with RES for 12 years and has over 20 years of experience in the wind construction industry.  Brian served on the AWEA board from 2002 to 2005. 

The group coordinates the development of wind power generation opportunities and manages site prospecting, land procurement, wind resource assessment, wind project design, permitting process, managing environmental studies, handling community relations, transmission and interconnection work, power marketing and contracting. 

RES Americas’ initial step is to identify areas with high wind resource and secure the key development sites.  It then applies its construction expertise to distinguish between those sites that can be cost-effectively built and those which can not.  This skill set is particularly critical in regions with difficult topography, such as the western U.S.

In addition to its Denver headquarters, the Company has regional offices that work in its strategic markets. The Company’s regional divisions and offices are as follows:

  The South Central office based in Austin, Texas, manages development across the Southwest and Central U.S. Key states in this region include Texas, Colorado, and Oklahoma.

The Pacific Northwest region is managed from RES Americas’ Portland, Oregon office. The development pipeline in this region includes significant projects in Washington and Idaho, among other states.

The North Central office in Minneapolis, Minnesota covers Michigan, North Dakota, Nebraska as well as Minnesota. In addition, the Company has a developer based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who works on development opportunities in the Northeast U.S. and reports to the North Central office.

Opportunities in Southern California are pursued out of the Denver office with a JV partner based in Redlands, California.

The Canadian office is based in Montreal in the province of Quebec.

Whilst no two sites are ever the same and each poses its own unique set of problems to be solved, a general process is outlined below:

• Identify areas with promising wind resource and transmission
• Identify and map landowners
• Establish relationship with landowners and negotiate wind measurement agreements and/or land leases
• Maintain strong relationships with local stakeholders, including local government, environmental groups, community groups and others
• Work with the RES construction team on project planning and design
• Guide projects through the permitting process
• Oversee establishment of project interconnection and transmission agreements with transmission operators
• Participate in negotiations with power and project offtakers, including utilities