Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and AEP tie-up anew in big US wind off-take deal

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ (CIP) planned Panther Grove wind farm in the state of Illinois has sealed an off-take agreement for its full 400MW capacity with AEP Energy, in the Danish fund manager’s latest move to expand its US onshore renewables ambitions.

Terms of the deal were not made public. Last December, a CIP fund acquired the project from Dallas-based developer Tri Global Energy. Plans are to start construction in early 2021, with commercial operation is targeted for late 2022.

AEP Energy, a subsidiary of large utility holding company American Electric Power, is among the fastest-growing US competitive retail electricity and natural gas suppliers with operations in six states and the District of Colombia.

Power from Panther Grove will supply AEP corporate customers, including IT giant Google, which will use production from the wind farm to run its recently announced New Albany, Ohio, data centre.

“This is an important milestone and the transaction highlights the strength of the project and the growing demand for green energy,” said Christian Skakkebæk, senior partner at CIP.

While CIP is best known in the US for its 50% ownership of Vineyard Wind , the nation’s pioneering 800MW offshore wind project set for federal permitting in December, the group has steadily expanded onshore here in the last several years.

Last year, it announced it would invest $80m equity for construction of the 162MW Bearkat II wind farm in West Texas that it is co-developing with Tri Global.

The two companies earlier collaborated on the 197MW Bearkat I and 148MW Blue Cloud projects in Texas that CIP owns, part of a multi-year 1GW portfolio development in the largest US wind market.

CIP also invested in two Texas wind projects developed by Tri Global with Greek renewables company Terna Energy – fronting mezzanine loans totaling $65m in 158MW Gopher Creek and $61m in the operating 155MW Fluvanna I.

SOO Green takes a different approach, as the 525kV direct-current lines would run underground along right-of-way owned by the railroad’s successor company Canadian Pacific, as opposed to those overhead that have drawn loud opposition – and lawsuits – from some landowners.

The project is expected to require another 2-3 years of development work, and then three years of construction, leaving it with a current anticipated date of completion in 2024.