OREANDA-NEWS. Iberdrola Renewables has reached a deal to supply power from its 76MW Twin Buttes II wind farm in southeastern Colorado to wholesale electric cooperative Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association.

The deal will send generation from the facility to Tri-State over a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) following project completion, expected in 2017, Iberdrola said yesterday.

Generation from the facility will serve up to 30,000 households. Tri-State serves 1.5mn customers across Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming.

Colorado's renewable energy standard requires electric cooperatives serving over 100,000 consumers to procure 20pc of their load from renewable resources by 2020, with investor-owned utilities required to procure 30pc over the same time. About 24pc of the energy Tri-State and its member systems delivered to cooperative members last year came from renewables, Tri-State senior vice president of energy management Brad Nebergall said.

Tri-State has previously entered into contracts with merchant operators Duke Energy and NextEra Energy Resources for output from two wind projects totaling about 200MW. The electric co-op also signed a 20-year PPA for rights to 56MW at the Highlands wind farm in northeastern Colorado.

The 75MW Twin Buttes I facility, completed by Iberedrola in 2007, sells power to Xcel Energy, which says the project was capable of generating about 267,000 renewable energy credits in 2014.

Iberdrola, Spain's largest power utility, operates in the US as a competitive merchant generator with roughly 6,000MW of wind, solar and natural gas-fired assets in such markets as California, New York, Texas and the PJM Interconnection.