As Tropical Storm Harvey continues to hammer coastal Texas for a fifth day with record rainfall that has left a massive swath of the nine-county Greater Houston Metropolitan Area under water, most wind farms in the region appear to have escaped its wrath.

The exception was E. ON Climate & Renewables' Papalote Creek I & II wind farms located just south of where the hurricane made landfall on Friday near Corpus Christi. The company tells Recharge that the storm heavily damaged the utility transmission and distribution system there.

The facility, which utilizes 109, 1.65MW Vestas turbines and 87, 2.3MW Siemens machines, experienced sustained wind of 90 miles per hour (144km per hour) with gusts exceeding 100 mph before coming off-line.

“The park was placed into an Owner’s stop and has remained down since the storm, since the underlying grid suffered extensive damage and power was lost to the facility,” E. ON says in a statement.

“Based on the damage …it may be several days before electrical service in the area is restored,” it continues, adding that initial reports from staff are that the turbines, substation and O&M building there “appear to be in good shape.”

The statement concludes, “Once power is restored to the substation, our team will begin working to energize the turbines, once they have been determined acceptable to return to service.”

E. ON reports its 200MW Magic Valley wind farm further south along the Gulf of Mexico coast in Willacy County – the next to last country before Texas’ border with Mexico – did not suffer damage and normal operations have resumed.

Elsewhere, Duke Energy Renewables tells Recharge its Los Vientos I and II wind farms (402MW) also in Willacy escaped damage. ““We dodged a bullet,” says Tammie McGee, spokeswoman for Duke Energy Renewables, noting the facilities avoided the strongest winds that reached 131mph elsewhere along the coast when Harvey was a Category 4 hurricane (it was downgraded Saturday afternoon to a tropical storm). “We haven’t seen any impacts.”

Acciona Energy, owner-operator of the 93MW San Ramon wind farm in Cameron County that borders Mexico, reported no damage from the storm. The nearby 165MW Cameron wind farm, which utilizes Nordex Acciona Windpower AW125/3000 turbines and is owned by home furnishings giant IKEA, apparently was also unscathed.

John Martinez, director of operations at Pattern Energy, says its 283MW Gulf Wind facility south of Corpus Christi in Kenedy County operated through the storm and did not sustain damage.

Avangrid Renewables' spokesman Art Sasse tells Recharge the company has "fared fairly well so far." It brought its Penascal I & II projects (404MW) and Baffin facility (201MW) – all located in Kenedy County – back into partial operation on Saturday and to near full capacity on Monday.

"We still have a significant number of personnel who need to remain evacuated with their families due to area flooding - but so far we have not seen the historic rainfall levels further north and east of our site," he says.

The three projects constitute Avangrid parent Iberdrola's largest renewable energy complex in the world.

Update with Avangrid comments

Wind

Most Texas coastal wind farms avoid Harvey storm damage