Suzlon sells 240 MW Big Sky Wind Farm in US to EverPower Wind Holdings

Mumbai: Suzlon Group, the world's fifth largest wind turbine manufacturer, on Wednesday announced the strategic sale of the 240 MW Big Sky Wind Farm in Illinois to EverPower Wind Holdings, Inc, pocketing about $100 million and leading its shares up 7% to close at Rs 15 in a firm Mumbai market on Wednesday.
Suzlon Group had recently acquired the Big Sky wind farm from Edison Mission Energy through its fully owned US-based subsidiary Suzlon Wind Energy Corp (SWECO) has signed a definitive agreement with EverPower to sell the project located in Illinois, about 95 miles west of Chicago, said a Suzlon statement. The deal was first reported by ToI on April 3.
"We are very pleased to welcome EverPower to the Suzlon family of customers. The SWECO OMS team looks forward to partnering with EverPower to maintain the high standards of availability and reliability at Big Sky that we have seen since operations started at Big Sky four years ago," said Duncan Koerbel, CEO of Suzlon Wind Energy Corporation and CTO of the Suzlon Group.
This acquisition of Big Sky by EverPower makes it the nation's 18th largest wind generator, with a combined capacity of 752MW in the US in winder power generation.
"We are pleased to add this project to our portfolio. It fits into both our overall growth strategy and our strategy of building our portfolio in liquid markets like PJM," said James Spencer, president and CEO of EverPower.
Completed in early 2011, the Big Sky Project utilizes 114 Suzlon 2.1MW S88 turbines to generate enough electricity per annum for nearly 50,000 homes while also offsetting over 225,000 tons of CO2 emissions.
"This sale of Big Sky Wind Farm to a sound long term investor like EverPower is an important part of our dis-investment strategy to hive off non-core assets, and the net proceeds of the sale will be used to fuel our business growth," said Kirti Vagadia, group head, finance at Suzlon. Besides, Suzlon has lined up a dozen non-core assets for sale and aims to raise Rs 1500 crore to pare its debts.