SunEdison gets USD 390m for 300 MW wind farm in Texas

US renewables major SunEdison Inc (NYSE:SUNE) today said that it closed financing of USD-390-million (EUR 360m) and broke ground on one of its largest wind farms to date, the 300-MW South Plains II wind farm in Floyd County, Texas.

Citi provided the construction loan facilities for the project and BHE Renewables, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy, in partnership with Citi, will invest in the tax equity.

"As we look for new ways to be involved in developing renewable generation, we see tremendous opportunity to move the industry forward through investment in the tax equity market," said Tom Budler, president of BHE Wind, a division of BHE Renewables.

The South Plains II wind power facility is expected to become one of SunEdison's largest wind projects, creating about 300 construction jobs. Mortenson Construction is in charge of the building works and the wind turbines are being supplied by Danish wind turbine maker Vestas Wind Systems A/S (CPH:VWS). Commissioning is targeted in 2016.

Once complete, the wind farm will be acquired by SunEdison’s renewables yieldco TerraForm Power Inc (Nasdaq:TERP).

Operation and maintenance of the wind power plants will be performed by SunEdison Services.

According to the developer's estimates, when fully operational, the wind farm will annually generate about 1,200 GWh of electricity, enough to power more than 90,000 homes in Texas and avoid the emission of 2 billion pounds of carbon dioxide.

Hewlett-Packard plans to purchase 112 MW of the wind farm's capacity to power 100% of its Texas-based data centres as part of the company's sustainable cloud initiative. The remaining 188 MW capacity will be sold to an affiliate of Citi.

(USD 1 = EUR 0.920)

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