Horizon Wind Energy, the U.S. wind power unit of Portugal’s EDP Renewables, has signed a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for the output of its 115-megawatt Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm in Iowa’s Mitchell and Howard Counties.
The electricity generated from the Pioneer Prairie farm will be piped from the Midwest to TVA’s service area across the U.S. Southeast.
TVA has been growing its renewable energy capacity. In December it signed a long-term PPA with the North American unit of Spanish power company Iberdrola to buy 300 megawatts of wind powered electricity from Iberdrola’s Cayuga Ridge project in Illinois. Last fall it signed a PPA with CPV Renewable Energy Company, an affiliate of Competitive Power Ventures, for 200 megawatts generated by the developer’s Ashley Wind Project in McIntosh County, N.D. It also signed a long-term PPA with Chicago-based Invenergy to buy 250 megawatts generated by the Chicago-based developer’s Hurricane Lake Energy Center in Roberts County, S.D.
TVA plans to add 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy to its generation portfolio.
For the Prairie Wind project, earlier Horizon Wind secured a long term PPA with Saint Louis power utility Ameren for about 100 megawatts to be generated once the project is fully developed and generates 300 megawatts of electricity.