Proposed to be built on about 25,000 acres of privately-leased land, the project would have comprised 77 turbines

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US renewable energy developer sPower suspends Seneca wind project in US. (Credit: Pixabay/Free-Photos)

US-based renewable energy Independent Power Producer (IPP), sPower has put the 200MW Seneca wind farm in US on hold for an undetermined period.

The firm has decided not to refile an application with the Ohio Power Siting Board for the project.

Proposed to be built on about 25,000 acres of privately-leased land, the project would have comprised 77 turbines located across the townships of Scipio, Reed, Venice, Eden and Bloom in Seneca County, Ohio.

Seneca project would have provided electricity to 60,000 homes per year

SPower CEO Ryan Creamer said: “We would like to thank our landowners and other community partners who have supported this project over the years, even before our acquisition.

“We hope to do more work in Ohio in the future, but at this time, we are making the difficult choice to place our resources in other states where there is a greater potential for success.”

The renewable energy developer said that the project would have supplied enough electricity to power approximately 60,000 homes annually.

It also expected that the wind farm would have contributed over $3m per year to the local economy, while creating about 250 jobs during the construction phase and between 10 and 15 permanent job positions.

In September last year, sPower secured debt and tax equity financing for 218MW Prevailing wind park in South Dakota.

The funds for the nearly $319m (£255.88m) construction/term facility were offered by HSBC and CIBC. The commitments of both the banks were backed by a $189m (£151.61m) tax equity commitment from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Once operational, the facility will generate enough electricity to power 90,000 average households in South Dakota.

sPower is a major leading IPP that owns and operates over 150 renewable generation systems across the US. The company has a wind, solar and storage portfolio of nearly 2GW, with 15 GW of projects under development.