Whirlwind – Texas wind asset
Ecofin US Renewables’s 59.8 MW Whirlwind Energy wind farm in Texas, has now moved significantly closer to coming back online. The asset management team of Ecofin Advisors, LLC has been working with the relevant counterparties to restore generation from Whirlwind following the tornado damage to a nearby substation in June 2023. AEP, the owner of the Matador and Paducah substations, has now finished testing a new transmission line past Matador to Paducah. The company expects to reenergise by mid-December 2023 (previously anticipated by end November) subject to wind speeds and a number of other variables. The first payment on the company’s business interruption coverage has now been received from the insurance providers and further payments are scheduled to follow, substantially mitigating lost revenue and expenses incurred as a result of the outage.
Ellis Road – Massachusetts solar farm
The company’s Ellis Road solar farm in Westminster, Massachusetts, was subject to rodent infestation which was causing outages. The asset management team has worked with the operations managers on site to remediate the operational issues, replace and better insulate wiring as needed, and improve asset performance, and is pleased to report that Ellis Road is now back online.
Strategic review
Finally, the Strategic review continues to make progress and the board will make further announcements when appropriate. Any plan that the board comes up with will be conditional upon shareholder approval at a general meeting of the company.
[This is all good news for the company and calls into question the extreme discount that the company is trading on – approaching the all-time low that it hit shortly after the tornado hit. We are still very disappointed that the board and investors cannot look beyond these relatively short-term issues towards the considerable opportunity that is presented by the growth of renewables in the US.]
RNEW : Ecofin US Renewables says Whirlwind about to be re-energised