ITOCHU, General Electric to Make Joint Investment in Oklahoma Wind Farm

ITOCHU, a Minato-ku, Tokyo-headquartered company, and General Electric headquartered at Fairfield, CT, USA, have entered in to a partnership accord to invest in green energy companies. The companies declared that they have finished the first deal of their partnership accord by making a joint investment of around $319 million in the CPV Keenan II wind farm in Oklahoma. The wind farm is currently under construction.

GE Energy Financial Services has vended a part of its $65 million preferred equity holding in the wind farm to Tyr Keenan II, an indirect auxiliary company of ITOCHU . The deal which was completed during May this year occurred to be the first joint-investment by ITOCHU and GE. The companies also hold the preference to make a joint investment of a further$100 million when the construction of the wind farm gets completed and when it begins its business operations from December this year.

Earlier GE Energy Financial Services had purchased the Keenan II, 152 MW wind farm formulated by CPV Renewable Energy Company in February this year. The wind farm situated about 12 miles south west of Woodward, Oklahoma, comprises 66 2.3 MW wind turbines placed over an area of 8,000 acres. When completed and commissioned the power generated from the wind farm can provide electricity to 45,000 average houses in Oklahoma and offset about 413,000 short tons of CO₂ emissions annually which can be equated to removing of 72,000 cars from the roads of the state. The wind farm project has signed a 20 year power purchase accord with Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company. The construction of the project which includes preparing the foundations for turbines, constructing inner access roads, building of substations, formulating power collection system, laying power carrying lines, construction of wind turbines and meteorological towers are currently being carried out by Delaney Group and is getting completed on schedule. NAES, a fully owned auxiliary company of ITOCHU and an independent third party company are entrusted with the responsibility of providing operations and maintenance services for the wind farm.