The inactive 11-turbine Casper Wind Farm that sits north of Evansville, Wyoming, is on its way out.
Chevron Power and Energy Management Co. spokesperson Patricia Enrico confirmed Thursday that the company notified the Natrona County Board of Commissioners in March that the company plans to decommission all of the 240-feet high, 450,000-pound wind turbines on the farm.
“On June 30, 2025, Chevron sent a decommissioning plan to the county commissioners as required by the county permit and are proceeding in accordance with the plan,” she said. “Chevron continually reviews its assets portfolio, including the Casper Wind Farm, to determine strategic value to support our operations.”
Enrico said the company has not been able to resolve issues to become a resource in the Western Energy Market.
Natrona County Board of Commissioners Chairman Dave North said he had a phone conversation with a company official about the potential shutdown and plans to meet on the issue next week.
North said the email and plan sent to commissioners did not get into a lot of details. The first phase of the plan calls for launching the project in the third quarter of this year.
“We are out of that now,” he said. “Physical decommissioning is supposed to start in 2026.”
The company wrote that it plans to inform the local community and begin evaluation for potential salvage and recycling, perform a site investigation to engage with regulatory agencies and establish a plan for temporary roadways and crane pads, as well as disconnect electrical systems and internal turbine wiring by the end of the year.
The Plan
Following physical decommissioning in 2026, the plan calls for site reclamation in 2027, monitoring as well as agriculture impact mitigation and erosion control in 2029 and completion of the project by the end of 2029.
“It says final closeout isn’t until the end of 2029, which I think is really weird,” North said. “They don’t have that many wind turbines out there.”
North said he does not know what the company wants to share at its meeting next week.
The decommissioning is not surprising to North who said, “they haven’t done anything since they were put up.”
“It’s like a lot of other things, if you have great plans and nothing happens with it, they are not nearly as great of a plan as you originally thought,” he said.
County Commission Vice Chairman Dallas Laird said he had not seen the decommissioning plan sent to the board but had heard that the turbines were going to come down. He sees the decommissioning as “an excellent thing.”
“If I would have been on the commission, I would have never granted them to even put them up,” he said.
Commissioner Peter Nicolaysen said he had seen the plan. He said from his perspective he would prefer the wind turbines be operating and not decommissioned.
“Since they are in theory connected to the grid or have the capability of being connected to the grid, I believe in an ‘all of the above’ energy policy which includes renewables,” he said. “But it’s been many years that they haven’t been operating and so it’s probably better for the immediately adjacent landowners for it to be decommissioned and reclaimed.”
The three-page email and plan sent to commissioners dated June 25, states that it was developed based on the requirements and schedule in the decommissioning plan developed when the turbine project went operational in 2009.
“Chevron will provide updates to the community throughout the decommissioning process before any large-scale physical activities take place,” the letter to commissioners' states.
‘A Lot Of Flak’
Former Natrona County commissioner Terry Wingerter, who was among county commissioners who voted to approve the turbines in 2009, said the removal is a good thing.
“I’ve always been for tearing those things down, because I was around when they put them up,” he said. “And us county commissioners got a lot of flak for giving Chevron the OK to put them up. But we did.”
Wingerter said the wind turbines were the first in the area and recalled “all kinds” of meetings regarding the project that resulted in commissioners giving the company approval to install the turbines.
A big reason for the approval was that commissioners were told that the entire area north of the North Platte River where the turbines sit is contaminated from the former Texaco refinery that sat at the location.
“The only thing they could do is put up the wind towers,” he said. Wingerter said commissioners at the time were told that Chevron had a contract with Rocky Mountain Power and “so we let them put them up.”
Wingerter said he regretted his vote because the turbines have been idle for so long and an “eyesore.” He said for the past couple of years has lobbied whenever possible to get them removed.
“I heard that they are going out for bid for a particular (demolition) company to take them down and it was confirmed to me the other day by someone on the committee about what to do with the lots that are out at the Texaco site, which is now the Chevron site.”
At the EPA’s website, it states that the entire site of the refinery’s footprint needed cleanup. The 880-acre area north of the river had evaporation ponds used to treat refinery wastewater that contained polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons that did not require removal but were designated as a “Use Control Area” to restrict the property’s future use.
Chevron’s President Greg Vesey in 2009 called the project “an excellent opportunity and location for the company’s first wholly owned wind facility, but the Casper Wind Farm also brings the former refinery site back into energy production with renewable energy.”
The website gridinfo.com ranks the Casper Wind 31 out of 31 wind power plants in the state.
It reported that the wind farm generated 2.1 gigawatt hours during a three-month period between September and December 2023.
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
