The Diamond Spring wind farm operation in southern Oklahoma, developed by Minnesota-based ALLETE Clean Energy has started commercial operations providing electrical power for three major corporations.
ALLETE announced the 303-megawatt farm located nearly 25 miles northeast of Ardmore and in Murray, Johnson and Pontotoc Counties started providing renewable energy to Walmart, Smithfield Foods and Starbucks. Each corporation has an energy sales agreement ranging from 12 to 15 years.
Diamond Spring is ALLETE Clean Energy’s largest wind site and producing enough electricity to power nearly 114,000 homes and increases the company’s total wind capacity to more than 1,000 megawatts.
“Diamond Spring will help our customers achieve their climate-action goals and bring more renewable energy onto the nation’s power grid,” said ALLETE Clean Energy President Allan S. Rudeck Jr.
With Diamond Spring online, ALLETE Clean Energy has turned its attention to developing the Caddo wind site in central Oklahoma. The 303-megawatt Caddo site is fully contracted to three corporate customers, of which 200 megawatts is contracted to McDonald’s Corp., increasing ALLETE Clean Energy’s share of the corporate and industrial clean-energy market. The project is expected to be operational by the end of 2021.
ALLETE Clean Energy’s strategic purchase of wind turbines that qualify for the safe harbor provision of federal production tax credits enables Diamond Spring’s low energy costs. In addition to turbines installed at Diamond Spring, ALLETE Clean Energy retains more safe harbor turbines for additional wind site development.
ALLETE Clean Energy owns, operates, has in advanced construction and has delivered build-transfer projects totaling more than 1,450 megawatts of nameplate wind capacity across seven states.
Source: BusinessWire