Scout Announces Financial Close on 300MW Ranchero Wind Farm
Construction set to begin immediately; Operational in 2019
Boulder, CO – January 17, 2019 – Scout Clean Energy (“Scout”), a Colorado-based renewable energy developer, is pleased to announce the closing of construction financing and tax equity commitments for the 300MW Ranchero Wind Farm located in Crockett County, Texas (‘Ranchero’). Scout is a portfolio company of Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners (“Quinbrook”).
The 300MW Ranchero project is expected to be operational by year-end 2019 and has been developed from inception by the Scout team. Ranchero will utilize 120 of the latest generation GE 2.5MW wind turbines with 127m rotors and has secured a 10-year Proxy Revenue Swap with Allianz Global & Specialty, Inc.’s Alternative Risk Transfer unit, in partnership with Nephila Climate. REsurety provided the risk analytics supporting the PRS transaction and will serve as the calculation agent on an ongoing basis. Construction financing, including letters of credit, is being provided by KeyBank. GE Energy Financial Services (‘GE EFS’) underwrote and committed a portion of the tax equity.
Scout has entered into a fixed price balance of plant construction agreement with RES Americas, with construction management and operations post construction to be undertaken by Harvest Energy Services, a Scout affiliate.
“We are proud of the great work our Scout team has done with our partners and the local community to get to this point. Ranchero is our first greenfield project since our launch as an owner-operator and it will bring Scout’s owned portfolio of wind energy generation to over 500MW. Ranchero will provide clean renewable energy for Texas industry and thousands of homes, as well as up to 200 jobs during construction and up to 10 permanent jobs during operations,” said Michael Rucker, CEO and founder of Scout Clean Energy.
“That Scout Energy has been able to accomplish so much in such a short time is a testament to our incredible team of experienced energy professionals,” continued Rucker. “Ranchero is another important step in our growth as a company and we expect to announce several other renewable energy projects being financed and built over the next 12-18 months.”
The construction of Ranchero will be managed by Harvest Energy Services, a Scout affiliate co-located in Boulder, Colorado.
About Scout Clean Energy
Scout Clean Energy is a renewable energy development company headquartered in Boulder, Colorado. Scout is developing a 2,400 MW portfolio of wind energy projects across 10 US states. Scout is an owner-operator with expertise in all aspects of wind development, permitting, power marketing, finance, construction and asset management.
About Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners
Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners (www.quinbrook.com) is a specialist investment manager focused exclusively on lower carbon and renewable energy infrastructure investment and operational asset management in the US, UK and Australia. Quinbrook is led and managed by a senior team of power industry professionals who have collectively invested over US$ 17 billion in energy infrastructure assets since the early 1990's, representing over 30GW of power supply capacity. Quinbrook's investment and asset management team has offices in Houston, London, Jersey, and the Gold Coast of Australia. Quinbrook has completed multiple investments in both utility and distributed scale wind power, gas fired power reserve and ‘smart grid’ projects in the US, UK and Australia and currently manages Cape Byron Power (www.capebyronpower.com), one of Australia's largest base-load 100% renewable power generators.
