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Financing Package Is in Place for Wind Farm

With 30 windmills already built, the first renewable energy project using the Sunrise Powerlink transmission line is closer to completion.

Pattern Energy Group, the San Francisco company building the Ocotillo Wind Project, said it recently completed a financing package for the 265-megawatt project, closing a seven-year construction loan co-led by Deutsche Bank and RBC Capital Markets, and which included four other major banks.

Pattern also got a 20-year loan with the North American Development Bank, a binational entity that receives its funding from the United States and Mexico, for $110 million.

But Pattern wouldn’t reveal the dollar amounts on the recent financing package because of nondisclosure agreements it signed with lenders.

The wind farm developer also declined to disclose the cost for the wind project that entails 112 wind turbines on some 12,500 acres of land, 25 miles west of El Centro in Imperial County, which is owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management.

Yet in a 2009 draft plan written for Pattern, the company stated the wind project “will likely cost approximately $1 billion.”

Supply 125,000 Homes

Once all the turbines are built, the Ocotillo project will generate sufficient power for 125,000 homes over a year, said Pattern spokesman Matt Dallas.

Ocotillo should be operating in early 2013.

“The project created about 350 construction jobs for the area and will create 20 permanent jobs once it’s done,” Dallas said.

He also noted all the components for the project are being sourced from U.S. manufacturers. The Siemens towers are made by Ameron International of California, while the blades are made in Iowa, and nacelles are made in Kansas, he said.

Gary Wyatt, a supervisor with Imperial County, said the wind project will provide a positive impact on Imperial Valley at a time when it needs it the most. According to a fact sheet on the project, the estimated annual tax revenue generated from the turbines is $5 million.

The wind project has been contested in court from a number of groups including several Native American tribes which say the windmills and the noise they generate will destroy sacred ancestral sites. Several environmental and local groups have also sued, contending the wind farms will harm the desert area and its natural life. The land for the wind farm is adjacent to the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

Opponents, including resident groups and environmental organizations, say that the federal and state agencies didn’t follow regulations in granting Pattern its permits.

“This is a windfall for (both San Diego Gas & Electric and wind developing companies) at the expense of ratepayers and protections to the environment,” said Donna Tisdale, a resident of the area and longtime opponent of the wind project and Sunrise Powerlink.

Pattern signed a 20-year power purchase agreement last year to supply the energy from the turbines to San Diego Gas & Electric.

SDG&E spokeswoman Jennifer Ramp said the company’s contract with Pattern is confidential, as are all renewable power purchase agreements as mandated by the state’s Public Utilities Commission.

Other Agreements

SDG&E signed eight other agreements for both wind and solar energy that will also be transmitted over the Sunrise line. The agreements total about 1,000 megawatts which is the capacity of the line, Ramp said.

Sunrise, which cost about $1.9 billion to build and was completed in June, became part of the regional power grid and is playing an important role in supplying the region’s energy needs, especially in light of the shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear plant earlier this year, Ramp said.

The Ocotillo farm is one of several other wind projects in the region that is rich in wind power. There is a wind farm under way at Tule, northwest of Boulevard, which would consist of 62 turbines and being developed by Iberdrola Renewables.

SDG&E is also constructing a substation near Jacumba that would serve as a transmission point for wind energy coming from a wind farm in Baja California, Mexico, as well as an interconnection point for transmitting solar and geothermal energy from Imperial County.

Ocotillo Wind is Pattern’s fifth wind project in North America. With its completion, it will bring the company’s total power outage to more than 900 megawatts of wind power capacity. It’s also building wind farms in Puerto Rico and Canada.

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