US utility Black Hills Corporation has started commercial operations at the 60MW Busch Ranch 2 wind farm in Colorado.
The $71m project was developed by the company’s power generation unit Black Hills Electric Generation for its affiliate Colorado Electric.
Busch Ranch 2 is located on 5260 hectares of land south of Pueblo in Huerfano and Las Animas Counties.
Colorado Electric will buy all of the project’s output under a 25-year power purchase agreement.
Black Hills now owns and operates 150MW of wind power in south Colorado.
Busch Ranch 2 will help Colorado Electric achieve the state’s Renewable Energy Standard of delivering 30% of its energy from clean power by 2020.
The wind farm will also further the city of Pueblo’s intention of providing its local citizens more energy from renewable energy, the company said.
Black Hills Corporation president and chief executive Linden Evans said: “The Colorado wind project continues our 21st century generation model of clean energy development.
“For over a decade, we have been modernising our electric system and growing our renewable energy portfolio to build one of the cleanest energy grids in Colorado, fueled by wind, solar and natural gas generation.”