Italian energy giant Enel, through its subsidiary Enel Green Power North America (EGPNA), has started commercial operations of the 185MW HillTopper wind farm in the US state of Illinois.
Image: Enel inaugurates wind farm in Illinois. Photo: Courtesy of RawFilm/Unsplash.
Located in Logan County, the HillTopper wind farm is Enel’s first wind facility in the state. It is supported by three long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Bloomberg, General Motors and Constellation, an Exelon company.
For this wind farm, the company has invested nearly $325m and it is expected to generate nearly 570GWh of clean electricity annually.
As per the long-term PPA with Bloomberg, Enel will supply 17MW of clean electricity portion from the wind farm to help it reach the news agency reach its 100% renewable energy goal by 2025.
A 100MW portion of power from the wind farm will be sold to General Motors under a second long-term PPA. This portion will be enough to provide 100% renewable electricity to all of General Motors’ manufacturing facilities in Ohio and Indiana and help the company achieve 20% energy supply from renewables.
As per the third long-term agreement, a portion of 23MW of power from the wind farm will be supplied to Constellation, a retail energy products and services provider. Constellation will in turn sell the power to two corporate customers through separate retail agreements.
Enel Green Power head Antonio Cammisecra said: “The completion of HillTopper represents our commitment to continued growth, through expansion into new areas and markets to serve new corporate and industrial customers.
“Through this first project in Illinois, we are helping our customers meet their clean energy goals with competitive solutions that adapt to their power needs and business objectives.”
Enel stated that it has signed nearly 570MW of commercial and industrial (C&I) PPAs in the US in the past one year. The PPAs include 10MW to Adobe, 320MW to Facebook from its Rattlesnake Creek wind farm, 100MW to Kohler from its Diamond Vista wind farm.
Including the PPAs for HillTopper wind farm, Enel’s PPAs are now more than 1.2GW in the US.