A wind project in Morgan County has been purchased by a multi-national corporate investor. Apex Clean Energy announced on Tuesday that Ares Management Corporation, that funds managed by Ares’ Infrastructure and Power strategy, acquired the Lincoln Land Wind Project in Morgan County.
Ares, which was founded in 1997 in Los Angeles, is a multi-billion dollar publicly traded corporation with offices on 3 continents. Ares Private Equity Group works in majority and share-controlled investments principally in under-capitalized middle market companies and manages investments in U.S. power and infrastructure assets in the power generation, transmission, and midstream sectors. It manages approximately $23.3 billion in assets under management through four corporate private equity commingled funds focused on North America.
Apex and Ares previously partnered in the State of Texas for the Aviator Wind Project, a 525 megawatt project in Coke County. It is the largest single-phase, single-site project in the nation. Aviator went online last year. Lincoln Land Wind is Ares’ 66th climate infrastructure investment, which collectively represent over 7 gigawatts of power generation.
Apex will maintain construction and assessment management of the Lincoln Land Wind while it is in construction throughout the remainder of this year. According to a press release, the project is expected to generate approximately $65 million in local tax revenue, $90 million in payments to landowners, and approximately 400 full-time local jobs during construction, and 9 long-term positions for operations.
The partnership between Apex and Ares will hold intact the agreements with Facebook and McDonalds agreements to purchase the 302 megawatts the project will generate.