An Oklahoma City law firm recently filed a federal lawsuit in Oklahoma on behalf of the City of Lubbock, Texas against renewable energy producer, Elk City II Wind LLC. The suit, filed by McAfee & Taft and Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann in the Western District of Oklahoma on March 13, 2023, seeks to void the parties’ 2012 Power Purchase Agreement on the grounds that transmission constraints and other issues have frustrated the purpose of the contract and made performance impossible. The city is seeking more than $19 million in restitution, according to a news report by EverythingLubbock.com.
The Complaint alleges the City of Lubbock had an agreement for wind-powered electricity with Elk City. According to court records, Lubbock claimed the deal should be void under Texas law. The company strongly disagreed.
The cities of Lubbock, Brownfield, Tulia and Floydada created the West Texas Municipal Power Agency (WTMPA) in 1983. A federal complaint stated Lubbock was deleted from the WTMPA in 2019, but still held the majority of an agreement the group made with Elk City in 2012.
Lubbock alleged it was paying for energy that was not used and a contract with little to no escape clause, according to the Complaint. Lubbock said the agreement did not let it control or limit the amount of energy it purchased.
“Energy supplied by the wind farm has become logistically and economically obsolete for Lubbock,” the complaint said. In a motion to dismiss the complaint, Elk City II Wind said “buyer’s remorse” was not an excuse to void the agreement.
“The flaws in Lubbock’s claims are numerous and fatal,” Elk City’s court records stated. The company called the lawsuit an “improper effort” to get out of a contract that Lubbock voluntarily accepted for years. The company said the reason Lubbock did not use the energy it paid for was because the city “failed to arrange delivery of that energy.”
Elk City claimed that Lubbock assumed the risk of not profiting from the deal under the agreement.
On April 28, 2023, Elk City filed a Motion to Dismiss and supporting brief. To date, the court has not issued a decision regarding the lawsuit’s dismissal.