Gamesa Wind US LLC, a wind-turbine manufacturer headquartered in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, will export equipment and services for the Cerro de Hula Wind Farm, the first utility-scale wind project in Honduras.
The transaction will now take place after the securing of a $159 million direct loan, provided by Ex-Im Bank's to the project sponsor, Energia Eolica de Honduras S.A., which will finance its purchase of 51 Gamesa G87 2-MW wind turbines for the 102-MW wind farm, which will be the largest in Central America. It is the second major wind farm to be supported by Ex-Im Bank in fiscal year 2010 and the Bank's first wind project in Central America.
The facility will be located 20 kilometers south of the capital city of Tegucigalpa in the municipalities of Santa Ana and San Buenaventura. When operational, the wind farm will be the fourth largest power generator in Honduras, producing about 6 percent of the country's power.
The wind turbines will be manufactured at Gamesa's Pennsylvania manufacturing facilities.
Gamesa Wind US LLC is a subsidiary of the Spanish wind-energy company, Gamesa Corporacion Technologica, a global corporation focused on wind energy. Gamesa began manufacturing wind turbines in the United States in 2006 and has annual production capacity of 1,200MW per year.
Mesoamerica Energy is a renewable-energy company that develops, builds, owns and operates wind projects and other renewable-energy facilities in Central and Latin America.
Ex-Im Bank is an independent, self-sustaining federal-government agency which provides a variety of financing mechanisms, including working capital guarantees to help small and medium-sized US businesses, export-credit insurance to protect against nonpayment by foreign buyers, and loan guarantees and direct loans to assist foreign buyers of US goods and services. In the first 10 months of fiscal 2010 (through June 2010), Ex-Im Bank authorized $20.8 billion in loans, guarantees and insurance - more than the total amount authorized in fiscal 2008.