Terra-Gen Breaks Ground on Wind Farm
TEHACHAPI, Calif. — Terra-Gen Power recently broke ground on the Alta Wind Energy Center, located in the Mojave Desert about 75 miles north of Los Angeles, which will feature more than 600 wind turbines that will produce upwards of 1,550 megawatts of renewable electricity at the site.
The project will create enough power for 275,000 homes in Southern California when completed in 2011, according to reports. Southern California Edison agreed in 2006 to buy 1,550 megawatts of electricity from the AWEC over a 25-year period, according to reports.
The multi-billion dollar project has taken more than a decade to come to fruition as developers fought opposition from local residents and delays in transmission infrastructure construction. When completed, the facility will produce double the energy as the country’s largest existing wind farm in Roscoe, Texas, and will boost California’s installed wind power capacity by 30 percent.
“AWEC will create a record-breaking amount of domestic wind energy, securing America’s energy independence while protecting our natural resources for future generations,” says Jim Pagano, CEO at Terra-Gen.
The Terra-Gen project will create more than 3,000 domestic manufacturing, construction and operation and maintenance jobs, contributing approximately $1.2 billion to the local economy in Kern County, as well as creating green jobs around the country, according to the company.
Vestas-American Wind Technology, headquartered in Denmark, will build 190 V90-3.0 MW turbines for the site at the company’s Colorado facility for Phases two through five of the project. Already, several wind turbines located on the site are under construction as part of the projects first phase, which began last March.
Citibank has been providing financing for the projects as part of a leveraged lease and will ultimately purchase the turbines at the beginning of commercial operations and lease them back to Terra-Gen, according to reports. Terra-Gen is a wholly owned affiliate of electricity investment firm ArcLight Capital Partners, headquartered in Boston, Mass. Global Infrastructure Partners, an independent investment fund with offices in New York and London, also contributed financially to the project.
Terra-Gen Power, based in New York City, owns and operates 21 renewable energy projects across the western U.S., which collectively produces about 831 megawatts of power.