Iberdrola Starts Three U.S. Wind Plants Totaling 265 MW

Iberdrola SA (IBE), Spain’s biggest utility, started up three U.S. wind farms with a combined electricity generation capacity of more than 265 megawatts.

The Manzana park in California is among the biggest operated by the Bilbao, Spain-based company, with 126 General Electric Co. (GE) 1.5-megawatt turbines providing capacity of 189 megawatts, Iberdrola said today in an e-mailed statement.

The other two farms are the 48-megawatt Groton site in New Hampshire with 24 Gamesa Corp. Tecnologica SA machines, and the 28.5-megawatt Hoosac plant in Massachusetts with 19 GE turbines.

Iberdrola, the second-biggest operator of wind farms in the U.S. with more than 5,700 megawatts of installed capacity, says it’s a “strategic” market and it will use 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion) or 16 percent of its investment from 2012 through 2014 in the U.S., mainly on grid and renewable energy projects.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net