SunEdison Inc. has closed financing and begun construction of the 300-megawatt South Plains II wind farm in Floyd County, Texas.
Citi provided the construction loan facilities for the project and BHE Renewables, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, in partnership with Citi, will invest in the tax equity. The wind farm is expected to generate approximately 1,200 gigawatt-hours of energy each year, enough to power more than 90,000 Texas homes and avoid the emission of 2 billion pounds of carbon dioxide.
“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.”
The project is being built by Mortenson Construction, whilst the wind turbines are being supplied by Vestas. Hewlett-Packard plans to purchase 112 megawatts of the wind farm’s capacity to power ts Texas-based data centers as part of the company’s sustainable cloud initiative. The remaining 188 MW of capacity will be sold to an affiliate of Citi.
The project is due to be start operating in 2016. The wind farm is on the Call Right Projects List for TerraForm Power Inc., which anticipates acquiring the project once complete. Operation and maintenance of the wind power plants will be performed by SunEdison Services.