ALLETE Signs Agreement With AES For 100.5 MW Armenia Mountain Wind Facility

(RTTNews) - ALLETE Clean Energy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ALLETE Inc. (ALE), has agreed to acquire 100 percent of AES Armenia Mountain Wind, LLC, a 100.5 Megawatt (MW) wind facility near Troy, Pa., from The AES Corp. (AES) and a non-controlling interest from a minority shareholder for a total of $108 million, plus the assumption of existing debt.

ALLETE Clean Energy or ACE had an option to purchase the Armenia Mountain facility, which was exercised on April 1; a purchase agreement with AES was signed April 30. Closing is expected in July 2015.

Located in the busy PJM electricity market near the New York-Pennsylvania border, Armenia Mountain's 67, 1.5MW General Electric wind turbines were installed in 2009. All the facility's energy output is sold through existing power purchase agreements that extend through 2025.

This is the fourth wind facility ACE has acquired from AES and the seventh in its portfolio. In January of 2014, the ALLETE subsidiary finalized the acquisition of wind energy projects with a total capacity of 231MW in Lake Benton, Minn., Storm Lake, Iowa, and Condon, Ore., from AES. Armenia Mountain is the largest and newest of the wind installations acquired by ACE.