United Wind, a provider of distributed wind energy solutions, has secured $13.5 million in financing from U.S. Bank and New York Green Bank to expand its WindLease program, which enables residential and commercial property owners to lease distributed-scale wind turbines (at or below 100 kW of rated capacity).
The program offers qualified customers – without any initial out-of-pocket costs – a fixed-rate, 20-year, maintenance-free lease to immediately reduce their energy costs by harvesting on-site wind energy.
United Wind launched the WindLease program in late 2013 in an effort to provide financing to the historically underserved distributed wind market. During the first two years of operations, the company closed two rounds of project financing and deployed over $7 million into 26 projects throughout the Northeast.
"Rural communities represent a vast, underserved market for renewable energy across the U.S. and beyond. Our WindLease program delivers highly competitive energy prices in these areas when compared to the grid or other renewable technologies," explains Russell Tencer, co-founder and CEO of United Wind.
"New York Green Bank is delighted to provide a construction loan to United Wind – establishing a precedent for distributed energy generation and addressing the issue of limited private financing market interest to date in supporting the construction of smaller-scale distributed energy projects," says Alfred Griffin, president of New York Green Bank.
