Roncevaux wind farm, located about 500 kilometers east of Quebec, is already under construction, but its developer, Invenergy Wind, has just completed the financing.
“We’re pleased to complete this important milestone together with our local community partners.With this financing secured, we will proceed to completion of construction of the facility. Once Roncevaux is operational, Invenergy will be managing five projects, representing more than 391 MW of clean energy sources in the province,” explained Jim Murphy, Invenergy’s CFO. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada and National Bank Financial Markets were lenders and facilitators of the financing.
GE 2.2-107 wind turbines will be used in the 74.8 MW system, which has an anticipated start date of December 2016.
Hydro-Quebec Distribution will buy the electricity generated by Roncevaux, through a 25-year power purchase agreement. The new wind farm is located about 7.5 miles from l’Ascension de Patapédia, a village with a population of about 190. This area has many boreal forests; hunting and fishing are common practices. The village is located within the Avignon regional county municipality.
Invenergy already has two wind power farms in this area and the electricity goes to Hydro-Quebec Distribution. The farms are called Le Plateau I and II.
Well over 13,000 MW of energy storage, utility-scale wind, solar, and natural gas projects have been developed by the company, which has its headquarters in Chicago. According to its website, Invenergy is the “largest North American independent wind power generation company.”
Canada is one of the leading wind power countries in the world, with over 11,000 MW installed.
There is enough wind power in Canada to generate electricity for about 3 million homes, according to the Canadian Wind Energy Association.
Quebec’s many wind turbines generate enough electricity to provide power to about 600,000 homes. It is no.2 in wind power among Canadian provinces and wind power there employs thousands of people.
In case you were wondering, the no.1 province for wind power is Ontario.
Image Credit: abdallah, Creative Commons 2.0