Financing for the Alta Projects II-V in the Tehachapi region of California include $580 million in pass through certificates, a $499 million construction bridge loan facility and $127 million in ancillary credit facilities.
MUFG Power & Utilities Group, Credit Agricole, ING Capital, Rabobank, Citi, Barclays and Bank of Montreal are providing the credit facilities.
Citibank will purchase the projects once they reach commercial operations and lease them back to Terra-Gen, which will manage and operate the wind farms.
Vestas will produce all its blades for the project at its Windsor, Colorado facility, and a majority of the towers will come from the manufacturers’ new tower plant in Pueblo, Colorado.
Its contract includes a five-year service and maintenance agreement, with delivery scheduled for late this year.
The project’s first five phases will take it to 720MW. The 150MW Alta Project I, which will use GE turbines, closed financing and started construction in March.
Terra-Gen has a 1,550MW power purchase agreement for the overall project, signed with Southern California Edison (SCE) in 2006.
Eventually, the developer aims to build the wind farm out to 3,000MW.
Tehachapi has been hampered by a lack of new transmission, but California regulators have allowed SCE to pay for $1.8 billion of transmission upfront, with plans for the utility to recoup costs from ratepayers later.
This should help enable projects such as Terra-Gen's.
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