The Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA) has entered into a 15-year agreement to purchase 50 megawatts of wind energy output annually from the Green River Wind Farm in northwestern Illinois.
IMEA is a joint action agency that supplies wholesale electricity to 32 municipal utility systems across Illinois.
The power purchase agreement will boost the amount of wind-generated energy output that IMEA uses to serve its municipal electric systems to 120 MW.
IMEA noted that power will begin flowing from the wind farm to the Agency once the project is completed, which is anticipated to be in October 2019. When complete, the 194-MW Green River Wind Farm will consist of 74 turbines situated across 13,000 acres in Lee and Whiteside counties.
“As we continue to diversify our resource portfolio, this project fits our needs to cost effectively add another source of green energy,” said Kevin Gaden, IMEA President and CEO.
“Our portfolio already includes wind-generated power from the Lee-DeKalb Wind Energy Center, two completed solar demonstration projects in St. Charles and Rantoul, three more solar demonstration projects that are under construction in Rock Falls, Naperville and Altamont, and two municipally owned hydroelectric facilities in Rock Falls and Peru, Illinois.”
Gaden said that “we’re also quite proud that with this purchase we are supporting in-state power generation, just as we do with our other wind farm.”
The new power purchase agreement will mean that approximately 10 percent of the Agency’s electricity comes from renewable sources.
IMEA is a not-for-profit unit of local government created in 1984 that is currently comprised of 32 municipal electric systems from all across Illinois. Each of those communities owns and operates its own electric distribution system. Some operate local power generation plants.
