The Illinois Municipal Electric Agency supplies wholesale electricity to 32 municipal utility systems across the state
Image: The Green River Wind Farm is located 210km west of Chicago and 80km east of the Quad Cities. Photo: Courtesy of Pexels from Pixabay.
The Illinois Municipal Electric Agency, (IMEA) has signed a 15 year agreement to buy 50MW of wind energy annually produced from the Green River Wind Farm in Lee and Whiteside Counties in Illinois.
IMEA’s power purchase agreement (PPA) is expected to take the wind-generated energy output it serves to the municipal electric systems to 120MW. The agency is expected to receive the power delivery from the wind farm after the planned completion of the project in October of 2019.
Green River wind farm details
The Green River Wind Farm is located 210km west of Chicago and 80km east of the Quad Cities, in Lee and Whiteside counties, north of the Walnut town.
Once completed, the wind farm covering 13,000 acres of area and installed with 74 wind turbines is expected to produce 194MW.
IMEA president & CEO Kevin Gaden said: “This project is a win for all involved. As we continue to diversify our resource portfolio, this project fits our needs to cost effectively add another source of green energy.
“Our portfolio already includes wind-generated power from the Lee-DeKalb Wind Energy Center, two completed solar demonstration projects in St. Charles and Rantoul, three more solar demonstration projects that are under construction in Rock Falls, Naperville and Altamont, and two municipally owned hydroelectric facilities in Rock Falls and Peru, Illinois.”
The share of wind energy output IMEA receive from the Green River Farm is adequate to power approximately 16,000 Illinois households annually. With the new PPA, IMEA is expected to source approximately 10% of the electricity its supplies from renewable sources.
IMEA supplies wholesale power to the utility systems of Altamont, Bethany, Breese, Bushnell, Cairo, Carlyle, Carmi, Casey, Chatham, Fairfield, Farmer City, Flora, Freeburg, Greenup, Highland, Ladd, Marshall, Mascoutah, Metropolis, Naperville, Oglesby, Peru, Princeton, Rantoul, Red Bud, Riverton, Rock Falls, Roodhouse, St. Charles, Sullivan, Waterloo and Winnetka.