EDF Pilot Hill Windfarm Begins Operations in Illinois

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--EDF Renewable Energy (San Diego, California) announced that the 176.3-megawatt (MW) Pilot Hill windfarm has begun commercial operations in Herscher, Illinois. The facility is located 60 miles southeast of Chicago, Illinois, within Iroquois and Kankakee counties.

The project consists of 91 General Electric (NYSE:GE) (Fairfield, Connecticut) wind turbines, each rated at 1.7 MW, and 12 GE turbines that are each rated at 1.8 MW.

Construction began in October 2014. M.A. Mortenson Company (Minneapolis, Minnesota) was the engineering, procurement and construction firm.

The windfarm will provide electricity to Microsoft Corporation's (NASDAQ:MSFT) (Redmond Washington) data center in Chicago, under a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with EDF. This is the second wind energy project in which Microsoft has signed a PPA.

The transaction is a part of Microsoft's initiative to use cleaner electricity for its data centers and to reduce the company's carbon footprint. Other large tech companies have signed wind PPAs to serve their data centers in the U.S.

The Pilot Hill windfarm will be operated and maintained by GE Wind Energy for a short warranty period. The possibility of renewing this agreement for long-term service will be negotiated toward the end of the warranty period.

EDF Renewable Services operates more than 9.4 gigawatts (GW) of wind energy and is the leading third-party provider of renewable energy operations in North America.

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