Suzlon to sell Big Sky Wind Farm to EverPower Wind Holdings

Suzlon, the world's fifth largest wind turbine manufacturer, has agreed to sell Big Sky Wind Farm in the US to EverPower Wind Holdings, Inc, for an undisclosed sum.

The deal comes a week after the Pune-based company acquired the troubled wind farm project from California-based Edison Mission Energy in a debt swap deal. (See: Suzlon Energy buys Big Sky Wind Park from Mission Energy in debt swap deal)

Suzlon had acquired Big Sky through its wholly-owned Chicago-based North American subsidiary SWECO.

Although Suzlon had not revealed the financial details of this deal, it seems to have acquired Big Sky in lieu of debt owed to it for the supply of turbines to Edison Mission in 2009.

In order to bag a 114-turbine order, Suzlon had offered to finance Big Sky's debt despite Edison Mission not having a long-term contract to sell power from the project in order to ensure financial stability of the wind farm. Turbine manufacturers fund wind farm projects only when they have a long-term power purchase contract in place.

Located in Illinois, a little over 90 miles west of Chicago, Big Sky started operations in 2011. The project comprises of 114 S88 turbines generating 240 megawatts of electricity - enough to power nearly 50,000 homes annually, while also offsetting over 225,000 tons of CO2 emissions.

The acquisition of Big Sky by EverPower makes it the 18th largest wind power generator in the US, with a combined capacity of 752 MW in the US in wind power generation.

''We are very pleased to welcome EverPower to the Suzlon family of customers,'' said Duncan Koerbel, CEO of Suzlon. ''The WECO OMS team looks forward to partnering with EverPower to maintain the high standards of availability and reliability at Big Sky that we have seen since operations started at Big Sky four years ago.''

''We are pleased to add this project to our portfolio,'' said James Spencer, president and CEO of EverPower. ''It fits into both our overall growth strategy and our strategy of building our portfolio in liquid markets like PJM.'' PJM is the regional transmission organisation that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity in all of part of 13 states and the District of Columbia.

Pittsburgh-based EverPower, owned by British private equity firm Terra Firma, has seven operational wind facilities with a nameplate capacity of approximately 752 MW in four US states.