BP’s Fowler Ridge wind farm goes live
BP, on Wednesday, started operating the 400-megawatt Fowler Ridge wind farm, located in Indiana’s Benton County.
BP’s BP Wind Energy arm and Dominion Resources jointly developed Fowler Ridge, which is located about 90 miles (150 kilometers) northwest of Indianapolis.
Fowler Ridge’s 400 megawatts output has been sold under a long-term power purchase agreement to Dominion’s energy marketing arm. Other offtakers include American Electric Power’s Indiana Michigan Power and Appalachian Power utilities.
BP and Dominion are joint venture partners on 300 megawatts of the facility; BP controls the remaining 100 megawatts. The companies said they could expand the facility to 750 megawatts in the future.
BP has more than 1,000 megawatts in commercial operation and more than 1,000 megawatts in an advanced stage of development.
BP earlier this year said its clean energy expenditure for 2009 would hover between $500 million and $1billion, a steep cut compared to the $1.4 billion it invested in the sector last year. Over the past year the London company has shutdown a solar panel manufacturing plant in Australia; Announced it would lay off 620 workers at two solar panel plants in the U.S. and Spain and scaled back investments at its D1 biofuel venture.
