OMPA To Purchase 49.2 Megawatts Of Canadian Hills Wind Farm

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact Drake Rice, Director of Member Services, 405/340-5047

OMPA To Purchase 49.2 Megawatts Of Canadian Hills Wind Farm

The Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority (OMPA) has entered into an agreement to purchase 49.2 megawatts of wind generation from the Canadian Hills Wind Farm near El Reno, which is owned and by Virginia-based APEX Wind Energy Holdings, LLC.  The power purchase agreement is for a 25-year term beginning in late 2012. The Canadian Hills Wind Farm has a planned capacity of approximately 300 megawatts.  The electricity supplied by the new wind farm would power about 120,000 average Oklahoma households.

APEX Wind Energy is a national developer of utility‐scale wind energy facilities both onshore and offshore.  Apex was launched in 2009 by a management team that has been in the wind industry since 2000 and is among the largest independent wind companies in the nation. 

The full 300 MW of capacity from Canadian Hills is planned to be in commercial operation in 2012.  The wind towers will be built along a ridge just north of Canadian Valley Technology Center’s El Reno campus, about 25 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. 

OMPA had previously announced its purchase from AEP Southwestern Electric Power (SWEPCO), of a share in the John W. Turk Jr. Power Plant in SW Arkansas. Together with 358.65 megawatts in new wind power purchase agreements by AEP SWEPCO the 49.2-megawatt OMPA agreement meets the 400-megawatt commitment in a recent settlement of legal issues involving the Turk Plant. OMPA owns 6.6 percent of the plant, which is under construction in Southwest Arkansas. SWEPCO owns 73 percent of the plant. On Dec. 22, 2011, SWEPCO announced that the company had settled all legal actions brought against it by the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society and Audubon Arkansas related to the Turk Plant. The settlement includes a provision that SWEPCO and its affiliates will construct or secure 400 megawatts of new renewable energy resources by the end of 2014. The SWEPCO and OMPA agreements total 407.85 MW.

OMPA is a state governmental agency created by the legislature to serve cities and towns that own and operate their electric distribution systems and is governed by the members.  The Authority presently serves 39 municipally owned electric systems in Oklahoma and is a non-appropriated state agency which is owned by the member cities it serves

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