Apex Wind Energy has acquired Wells Prairie Wind from Wind Capital Group and renamed the 44,000-acre wind-farm project Wells County Wind II.
The project is being built in Wells County in two phases. Wind turbines installed in the first phase will be capable of generating 200 million watts of electricity, and the generation capacity of turbines installed in the second phase will be 100 million watts.
“We are very excited by the opportunity to build a project in Wells County with the capacity to power 100,000 homes,” Rob Propes, development manager for Charlottesville, Va.-based Apex, said in a statement.
“By expanding the potential development area, we can make our project more efficient and more productive. We are thrilled to welcome Wells County II landowners into our project, and we look forward to working with them to develop a clean, renewable, stable-priced energy resource in Indiana.”
Over the life of the project’s first phase, the statement said the county would see more than $17 million in new tax revenue from it.
The statement said participating landowners would see $2 million annually in direct payments from the project’s first phase over the life of it.
The statement said additional turbines installed for the second phase would increase the direct payments to participating landowners and create additional tax revenue, but it did not project how much they would increase.
“The expansion of the project will also increase the number of construction and direct and indirect jobs created in the county, while offering participating landowners more certainty of the project being completed,” the statement said.
Wind Capital Group is based in St. Louis.