SunEdison, Inc. (NYSE: SUNE), has announced it has closed financing and commenced construction on the South Plains II wind farm in Floyd County, Texas.
One of SunEdison’s largest wind farms so far, the 300-megawatt facility is expected to generate 1,200 gigawatt-hours of clean electricity annually, which is enough to power more than 90,000 Texas homes.
South Plains II, which will use wind turbines supplied by Vestas, will avoid more than 900,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year.
“The South Plains II wind power facility will have a positive economic impact for the people of Texas,” said Paul Gaynor, SunEdison’s executive vice president of Americas and EMEA. “This is expected to become one of SunEdison’s largest wind projects, creating about 300 construction jobs and ensuring that thousands of Texans have access to clean, cost-effective electricity.”
Texas, once better known for its oil industry, is now the USA’s leading wind power state. According to the American Wind Energy Association (PDF), the state had more than 15,635 MW of wind capacity installed in 2014, with 6,805MW under construction. Wind power provided 9.00% of all in-state electricity production last year.
Construction loan facilities for South Plains II have been sourced from Citi and BHE Renewables will invest in the tax equity. The project is being built by Mortenson Construction; which also constructed the 200MW South Plains wind farm.
Output from 112 megawatts of South Plains II’s capacity has been earmarked for Hewlett-Packard under a previously announced power purchase agreement with SunEdison. The electricity will be used to power 100 percent of HP’s Texas -based data center operations. SunEdison says the remaining 188 MW capacity will be sold to an affiliate of Citi.
South Plains II is expected to be completed next year and SunEdison will provide ongoing operations and maintenance services for the plant.
Other wind farm projects in SunEdison’s portfolio include the recently announced 185MW Bingham Wind project in Maine, USA and a partnership with Gamesa that will see up to 1 gigawatt of wind farms developed around the world by 2018.
SunEdison became the world’s largest renewable energy developer after acquiring First Wind earlier this year.
