May 1, 2014
Texas

Mars partners with Sumitomo on 200-megawatt wind farm in Texas

By Chisaki Watanabe | Bloomberg | 2014-05-01 | www.bloomberg.com

Mars Inc., the closely held maker of M&M’s candies and Uncle Ben’s rice, will partner with Sumitomo Corporation of Americas on a 200-megawatt wind farm in Texas.

Mars will receive all the renewable energy certificates from the 118-turbine wind farm to offset energy use at its entire U.S. operations, the McLean, Virginia-based company said in a statement. The “Mesquite Creek Wind” farm was developed by Sumitomo and BNB Renewable Energy Holdings and is scheduled to start running in the second quarter of 2015, the companies said in the statement yesterday.

The Texas wind farm will produce enough energy to make 13 billion Snickers candy bars, according to Mars’s website. The farm is being developed on a 25,000 acre (10,117 hectare) site in Borden and Dawson counties about eight miles (13 kilometers) from Lamesa, Texas.

BNB Renewable, which began planning the wind farm in 2008, agreed to jointly develop the project with Sumitomo in 2013, BNB said on its website. Sumitomo bought a 50 percent stake and co-developed the project up to the closing of financing when Sumitomo bought BNB’s remaining interest.

The project will cost $345 million financed mostly by loans from the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., and Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Corp., a Tokyo-based trading company, said in a statement today.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2014/05/01/mars-partners-with-sumitomo-on-200-megawatt-wind-farm-in-texas/