WEST LEBANON, N.H. — TransCanada is looking to sell its New England power generation business, including its wind farm in western Maine and hydroelectric dams on the Connecticut River, as part of its effort to finance its $10 billion acquisition of Houston-based Columbia Pipeline Group.
TransCanada bought 13 hydroelectric dams on the Connecticut and Deerfield rivers from USGen New England in 2005.
The Valley News reported the Wilder, Bellows Falls and Vernon, Vermont, dams are among the assets TransCanada plans to sell. TransCanada also plans to sell its Kibby wind development in Maine; its generation plants in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and New York and its power marketing business.
The Kibby wind farm generates enough power for 50,000 homes. Based near Eustis in Franklin County, the wind farm was built in two phases. The first, completed in 2009 and the second a year later, erected 44 turbines that generate a combined 132 megawatts of power, making it one of the largest wind farms in New England.
The project was valued at $320 million at the time it was being built.
Interest from southern New England states in clean energy has been building as the closure nears of the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The plant supplies power for nearly half a million homes and is due to shut down in 2019.
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut jointly issued a proposal for clean energy that elicited 51 projects in February, many of them from wind power developers.
TransCanada, which had proposed the Keystone XL oil pipeline, has challenged the U.S. government’s rejection of the project.
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