Aviator Wind East is an approximately 200 MW segment of the 525 MW Aviator Wind project located in Coke County, Texas. Aviator Wind will be the largest single-phase wind project in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the largest single-phase, single-site wind project in the United States.
ERCOT manages the flow of electric power on the Texas Interconnection, supplying power to more than 25 million people in the state and representing 90 percent of its electric load. It is the first independent system operator (ISO) in the United States and one of nine ISOs in North America.
Aviator Wind was developed by Apex and is owned by funds managed by Ares Infrastructure and Power.
“We are excited to partner with Facebook to help it achieve its long-term renewable energy goal” said Keith Derman, Co-Head of Ares Infrastructure and Power. “Corporate leadership is driving the energy transition and this project fits perfectly with our value-add strategy of investing in clean energy projects.”
Urvi Parekh, renewable energy manager at Facebook, added that as part of the company’s goal to support 100 percent of its operations with renewable energy, the company wants to help drive the energy transition and increase access to wind and solar power around the world. The project will be an important part of the plan to successfully reach Facebook’s targets.”
Aviator Wind East will be operational in 2020. It will help support Facebook’s operations in the region and will help the company reach its goal to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent and support 100 percent of its operations with renewable energy in 2020. Facebook was the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in 2018 and its portion of the Aviator Wind project will be 199.76 MW.
Aviator Wind is Ares Infrastructure and Power’s eleventh wind investment, which collectively represent 4 GW of power generation, and is a continuation of Apex’s strong partnership with Ares Infrastructure and Power. Apex Clean Energy will provide both construction and asset management services for the project.
An additional unnamed corporate power purchase agreement for the majority of the balance of Aviator Wind, known as Aviator Wind West, will be announced at a later date.
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