Austin’s Cielo plans West Texas wind farm

Austin’s Cielo plans W. Texas wind farm
Austin Business Journal
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Austin-based Cielo Wind Power LP signed a 15-year agreement to sell energy from a planned 161-megawatt wind farm in West Texas.

Under terms of the deal, Xcel Energy will buy electricity produced from the project a Cielo affiliate has planned near Amarillo. The future Spinning Spur Wind Ranch is slated for a plot west of Vega, north of I-40, west of U.S. Highway 385.

Xcel will buy the expected 650,000 megawatt-hours of electricity annually and receive the associated renewable energy credits for at least 15 years, the companies said in a press release. Xcel already purchases about 900-megawatt wind capacity from long- and short-term contracts with facilities in eastern New Mexico and the central and northern Texas Panhandle.

“Our modeling shows this purchase is economically beneficial to our customers, and it also decreases our reliance on traditional generating resources,” said Riley Hill, president and CEO of Southwestern Public Service Co., an Xcel Energy company.

“This purchase further supports economic development in rural parts of our service area that are benefiting greatly from wind energy development.”

Cielo will begin work on the project reportedly worth about $100 million in July 2011. The company estimates the wind farm will… READ MORE.