Scout Clean Energy has closed construction financing and tax equity commitments for the 130MW Bitter Ridge wind farm in the US state of Indiana.
KeyBanc Capital Markets was coordinating lead arranger, joint lead arranger, sole bookrunner and administrative agent with CoBank, ACB and Rabobank acting as joint lead arrangers for the $210m construction financing.
GE Energy Financial Services has underwritten and will commit a portion of the tax equity financing.
Bitter Ridge has been developed by Scout and will be owned and operated long-term by the company’s asset management team.
Construction is already underway, with all the foundations completed ahead of the winter season.
The wind farm will feature 52 GE 2MW turbines, with balance of plant construction services being carried out by Mortenson.
Jay County will receive over $18m in tax revenue from Bitter Ridge over the operating life of the project, with over half going to directly supporting local schools.
Additionally, the county will receive $1.56m in economic development payments made by wind farm for the benefit of several local community initiatives.
Scout founder and chief executive Michael Rucker said: “Bitter Ridge is Scout’s second project to close construction financing this year and follows the recent successful closing of our Heart of Texas project and the commencement of operations at Ranchero.
“We anticipate that Bitter Ridge will be fully operational by September of next year.
“Bitter Ridge is also the second greenfield project that the Scout team has developed from inception and it will support up to two hundred jobs during construction and as many as five permanent jobs once operational.
“Bitter Ridge brings Scout’s operational and in construction wind portfolio to over 900MW.
“This is quite an achievement by the combined Quinbrook and Scout teams considering that we kicked off the program together less than three years ago.”
Scout, which is a portfolio company of Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, had previously announced this year that the project has a 15-year power purchase agreement signed with Constellation, an Exelon company, for approximately 80% of the capacity generated by Bitter Ridge.
Rucker said: “Supported by a long term PPA with Constellation, construction is already well advanced and the overall project execution has been moving quickly.
“We are excited to have Bitter Ridge interconnected to the PJM independent system operator from where it can serve renewable energy demand throughout PJM’s footprint.”