Starwood buys Pickens wind farm

Energy infrastructure investor Starwood Energy Group Global has acquired a 377-megawatt (MW) wind farm in Texas, according to a press release.

The press release said Starwood Energy bought the 47,000-acre ‘Stephens Ranch Wind Project’ from Mesa Power Group. Mesa Power is a Dallas-based renewable energy company founded in 2007 by billionaire financier T. Boone Pickens.

A year later Pickens, who is head of hedge fund BP Capital Management, put out his ‘Pickens Plan,’ a campaign to position natural gas and wind power to end US reliance on foreign oil. Pickens also announced his intention to establish the largest wind farm in the world in Texas, an idea he abandoned by 2010.

Mesa Power in 2012 partnered with developer Wind Tex Energy to set up the Stephens Ranch Wind Project, which is located in rural Borden County, 50 miles from Lubbock, Texas. JP Morgan Securities advised Mesa Power on the sale, according to the press release. Cole Robertson, partner with BP Capital, was travelling and did not respond to an email. It could not be determined why Mesa Power decided to sell the project.

The project is expected to begin construction in September and be in operation by next August. A spokeswoman for Starwood Energy declined to disclose the cost of the wind farm. Starwood Energy is owned by Starwood Capital Group Global, a private equity real estate firm headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, a US New England state. 

The Starwood Energy Infrastructure Fund closed on $433 million in 2008.