WEC Energy announced that it has acquired 80% stake in Coyote Ridge Wind Farm which is under construction in Brookings County, South Dakota.
Image: Coyote Ridge project has 39 GE wind turbines and a combined capacity of 97MW. Photo: Courtesy of Brady Bellini on Unsplash.
The Coyote Ridge project, with 39 GE wind turbines and a combined capacity of 97MW, is being developed and will be operated by Avangrid Renewables, a subsidiary of AVANGRID.
The wind farm is expected to be operational by the end of 2019 and has signed a long-term offtake agreement with Google Energy for 100% of the energy produced.
WEC Energy Group’s investment for its 80% stake in the wind farm will be a total of $145m.
WEC Energy Group chairman and chief executive officer Gale Klappa said: “We continue to see promising opportunities to deploy capital in renewable energy assets that will serve strong, growing companies for years to come.”
WEC Energy claims that the transaction has received all necessary regulatory approvals and under the new tax rules, its investment is expected to be eligible for 100% bonus depreciation.
Based in Milwaukee, WEC is one of the premier energy companies serving 4.5million customers in Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota. The company’s major subsidiary, We Power, designs, builds and owns electric generating plants.
The company’s principal utilities are We Energies, Wisconsin Public Service, Peoples Gas, North Shore Gas, Michigan Gas Utilities, Minnesota Energy Resources and Upper Michigan Energy Resources.
In June 2018, WEC agreed to acquire 80% interest in the 132MW Bishop Hill III wind farm, from Invenergy for an enterprise value of $148m.
The Bishop Hill III wind farm, which consists of 53 GE turbines, is located in Henry County, Illinois and was developed by Invenergy. The project has a 22 year power purchase agreement with WPPI Energy to sell 100% of the energy generated and was placed into service in May 2018.
WPPI Energy I based in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, is a not-for-profit company that provides electric power to 51 member utilities in Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa.