June 2, 2020
Scout Clean Energy reaches commercial operations at Heart of Texas. REsurety provided risk analytics to support a Proxy Generation PPA for the project.
Colorado-based renewable energy developer, owner and operator, Scout Clean Energy, completed construction and successfully closed tax equity funding for the utility-scale 180-MW Heart of Texas Wind Farm (HTX) in McCulloch County, Texas. Scout is a portfolio company of Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners.
HTX utilizes 64 of the latest generation GE 2-MW platform wind turbines and three models of 2-MW platform turbines to optimize site production. Construction began in September 2019 and was completed following the commissioning of Scout’s 300-MW Ranchero Wind Farm in Crockett County, Texas late last year.
Scout entered a fixed-price balance-of-plant construction agreement with RES Americas Construction, who completed the construction. The asset management and post-construction operation will be undertaken by Scout.
Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty’s Capital Solutions unit, in partnership with Nephila Climate, has entered into a pgPPA with the project company. A pgPPA is the newest structure in a suite of risk management tools that allows buyers and sellers of renewable energy to manage the risks created by weather-driven renewable energy, which provides an alternative offtake arrangement guaranteeing a rate per MWh to the project for its proxy generation. REsurety provided the risk analytics supporting this long-term offtake transaction.
Construction financing of $255 million was provided by KeyBank as an Administrative Agent, Rabobank and CoBank ACB. GE Energy Financial Services and BHE Renewables invested tax equity. The project has tax incentive agreements in place with McCulloch County, McCulloch County Hospital District and Lohn Independent School District. It is estimated that the county will receive $36 million in tax revenue over the life of the project.
“Heart of Texas was completed on time and under budget which is quite an achievement given the wide-spread disruption that COVID-19 has caused across the entire US economy,” said Michael Rucker, CEO and founder of Scout Clean Energy.
“Reaching commercial operations at Heart of Texas brings Scout’s operational portfolio of wind energy generation to 698 MW with a further 146 MW under construction and more than 4,000 MW in our active development pipeline.”
Reposted as in Renewable Energy World.
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