January 14, 2012
Kansas

Financing found for Gray County wind farms

By JOHN GREEN, Special to The Telegram, The Garden City Telegram, www.gctelegram.com 14 January 2012

Developers of two separate wind farms in western Kansas announced this week they’ve secured financing to complete the projects, much of it for one project from overseas.

CPV Renewable Energy Co. revealed Wednesday it has reached agreement on $262.8 million of financing for construction of its 165.6 megawatt Cimarron Wind Energy Project in Gray County.

The company began construction on the wind farm last month and expects it to be in commercial operation by November, according to a company release.

A group of five investors, lead by Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ and Union Bank of California, will provide credit to construct the project, composed of 72 Siemens 2.3-megawatt turbines manufactured in Hutchinson. The financiers also include Siemens AG’s financing division, Siemens Financial Services, as well as German-based Helaba, and Lloyds.

The farm, within Foote Township, about 4 miles north of the city of Cimarron on the east side of K-23, is on 12,000 acres of mostly crop and grasslands that are under lease. The project will supply Tennessee Valley Authority with renewable energy under a 20-year power purchase agreement.

Wanzak Construction, a MasTec company, is the general contractor. North American Energy Services will operate the completed farm, according to the CPV release.

CVP Renewable Energy, a division of Competitive Power Ventures Holdings LLC of Silver Spring, Md., also owns the 152 MW Keenan II wind farm just outside of Woodward, Okla., and claims to have a combined 4,321 MW of wind energy in various stages of development across North America.

Also this week, BP Wind Energy announced it has reached agreement with Sempra U.S. Gas & Power, a subsidiary of San Diego-based Sempra Energy, to invest more than $1 billion in the joint development of its Flat Ridge 2 Wind Farm and the Mehoopany Wind Farm in Pennsylvania.

BP expects both wind farms, reportedly the largest built in their respective states with a combined output of 560 megawatts, to be operating by the end of the year.

The estimated $800 million Flat Ridge II project will start on the edge of the company’s Flat Ridge I, in northeast Barber County, and extend in a four-mile-wide corridor for 18 miles to the east through Kingman and Harper counties, Karl Pierce, director of development for BP Wind Energy, previously reported.

The farm, using wind turbines built by General Electric Co., will have a capacity of 419 MW and deliver power to Associated Electric Cooperative and Southwestern Electric Power Co.

Associated Electric Cooperative provides power to six regional and 51 local electric cooperative systems that are its members in Missouri, northeast Oklahoma and southeast Iowa. SWEPCO, headquartered in Shreveport, La., serves customers in three states, including western Arkansas, northwest Louisiana, and east and north Texas.

Construction of the 141 MW Mehoopany Wind Farm in Wyoming County, Pa., began in November.

BP has ownership interests in 13 wind farms globally with a combined capacity of over 1,700 MW.