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Tech stocks - Monday, January 4, 2010

AES Announces 101MW Wind Farm In Pennsylvania Is Open For Business

The turbines at the 101MW Armenia Mountain wind farm in Pennsylvania are starting to turn as AES Wind Generation (AES:NYSE) announced the beginning of commercial operation today. 100 percent of the power generated by the 67 1.5MW GE (GE:NYSE) SLE wind turbines will be sold to regional utilities.

Delmarva Power & Light and Old Dominion Electric Cooperative will each purchase 50 percent of the power generated from the wind farm under separate 15-year agreements. According to its Web site, Delmarva admits to not obtaining a significant amount of its energy from renewable energy sources but has set a goal of 20 percent by 2020. For Old Dominion, this is the third wind energy contract the company has signed in as many years.

Last year, AES Wind Generations saw its global operating capacity increase to 1,447MW by brining online an additional 166MW. Along with wind farms in the U.S., AES also operates wind facilities in China and France and has thermal and renewable energy projects on-line in Cameroon, Chile, China, France, Jordan, and Northern Ireland and is expanding its global presence by working on projects in Bulgaria, Greece, Panama, Scotland, and Turkey.

As AES continues to expand globally at an aggressive rate, developing new projects in the U.S. appears to be important to the company. “Armenia Mountain is our first wind project in PJM Interconnection, which we continue to see as an important market in our U.S. strategy,” said Marty Crotty, President of AES Wind Generation in a prepared statement. “We look forward to developing new projects in the region.”

PJM Interconnection is a regional transmission organization that currently serves 51 million people in 13 states and the District of Columbia.