Energía Sierra Juárez Wind Farm

Baja California, Mexico, offers some of the strongest wind resources on the West Coast. For all the minute details involved in developing a major wind farm to help serve demand in nearby southern California, Sempra turned to us, a frequent partner on wind projects, for owner’s engineer services.

Sempra International, an independent power producer based in San Diego, California, retained our team to provide owner's engineer services in the comprehensive development and construction of the initial phase of the Energia Sierra Juarez (ESJ) Wind Project, the country's first cross-border wind farm and the largest project ever constructed by Sempra. With 47 wind turbine generators, the project has more than 155 MW of renewable wind capacity capable of powering up to 65,000 Southern California homes.

Our role on the project included development support, environmental permitting services, engineering, and construction support. For example, we evaluated more than 10 bids for project's turbine supply, consisting of more than 15 unique turbine models. This evaluation included identification of a preferred turbine model, a challenging task in the project's difficult environment.

We also provided support with turbine micro-siting, preliminary design, wind resource assessments, noise studies, commercial negotiation support, detailed engineering reviews, financing support, on-site construction monitoring, and much more.

The wind farm became operational in 2015 and is actively contributing clean, affordable power to the people of Southern California. ESJ was a first-of-its-kind project with coordinated efforts required across multiple countries and hundreds of stakeholders. The Burns & McDonnell-Sempra team worked to minimize these challenges and ensured the long-standing success of ESJ.