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GE Energy Financial Services Partners With Acciona in $381 Million Project

Posted on: Wednesday, 13 August 2008, 06:00 CDT

GE Energy Financial Services, a unit of GE, has announced that it is partnering with Acciona, which is engaged in wind farm development, and is investing $141 million in the Tatanka wind farm on the North Dakota-South Dakota border.

It is reported that the transaction represents the GE unit's first wind equity investment in the Dakotas and the first wind farm in the US built entirely by Acciona.

GE Energy Financial Services invested with Wachovia Investment Holdings to provide structured equity for the 180MW wind farm, which spans 14,000 acres of farmland in Dickey, McIntosh and McPherson counties in North and South Dakota.

The $381 million project, which went into commercial operation in July 2008, uses 120 Acciona 1.5MW turbines to provide enough electricity to power more than 60,000 average homes. Dickey and McPherson counties will hold 61 and 59 turbines, respectively, while McIntosh hosts transmission lines.

The farm will annually produce power sufficient to avoid more than 550,000 tons a year in greenhouse gas emissions, compared to equivalent fossil fuel generation. That is comparable to taking 90,000 cars off the road. Acciona Energy North America will own and operate the new wind farm.

Tim Howell, managing director and origination leader of renewable energy at GE Energy Financial Services, said: "We are helping Acciona with Tatanka, whose name is inspired by the Lakota Indian tribal word for the buffalo that once roamed the Midwest, to charge into the American wind industry with a major project in the best wind farming area of the US."

Source: Datamonitor

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