Powered by 73 GE 2.5 MW wind turbines, the 200 MW Persimmon Creek wind farm is now up and running in Oklahoma.
Global investment manager Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners and wind developer, owner and operator Scout Clean Energy have announced the completion of construction and commencement of commercial operations of the $270 million project, which is located across 17,000 acres in Dewey, Ellis and Woodward counties.
Persimmon’s construction was completed in under nine months by Wanzek Construction. The wind farm, a joint venture between Quinbrook and Elawan Wind USA, will be initially operated under a GE full-service operations and maintenance agreement.
Persimmon was financed with equity investments from both Quinbrook and Elawan, along with tax equity investments from a consortium comprising GE Energy Financial Services and J.P. Morgan. Construction lending was provided by ABN Amro, GE Energy Financial Services, MUFG and Rabobank. Persimmon will sell power into the Southern Power Pool (SPP) market under a long-dated energy hedge provided by an affiliate of Citi.
“We are delighted to have Scout’s first wind farm project up and running and to have completed construction on time and on budget. We believe that Persimmon is an outstanding wind project located in a very robust wind regime,” says Jeff Hunter, senior managing director of Quinbrook. “The significant amount of tax equity financing we have secured from both GE and J.P. Morgan is testament to the quality and differentiation of the project and complements the development work undertaken by Scout’s team, together with operations affiliate Harvest Energy Services, and, of course, our partner, Elawan. This is an important milestone for Scout, which will now assist acceleration of the remaining projects in its diverse and growing wind power portfolio which Quinbrook and the Scout team have together expanded to over 2.3 GW spanning 13 projects in 10 states.”
“Persimmon’s successful completion is an important catalyst for Scout and paves the way for several additional Scout wind projects that are nearing completion of development and which are scheduled to commence construction over coming months,” notes Michael Rucker, CEO of Scout Clean Energy. “The Scout and Quinbrook teams worked closely with GE in late 2017 following the U.S. tax reforms to ensure Persimmon would proceed when many other projects stalled. We acknowledge their efforts and those of our partner Elawan in successfully navigating many obstacles to get Persimmon built on time and on budget.”
