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Pennsylvania firm to build, export wind turbines

A Pennsylvania company will build, assemble and export 12 high-tech wind turbines to help supply electricity in Honduras.

Gamesa Wind US, LLC, a firm based in Trevose, Pa., will manufacture and export six of its high efficiency 2.0 MW turbines to generate power in a rural section of Honduras. Gamesa operates two facilities in the United States, a blades factory in Ebensburg, near Johnstown, and a plant outside Philadelphia.

Approximately 200 Pennsylvanian workers will be involved in building the turbines due to the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. approving a $28.6 million direct loan to a Honduran power company.

The transaction helps to expand a project first supported by the Bank in 2010, when its long-term financing of 51 U.S.-built turbine generators established the Cerro de Hula Wind Farm in Santa Ana, Honduras. The project developer and borrower, Energía Eólica de Honduras S.A., will sell the electricity to the Central American nation’s utility, Empresa Nacional de Energía Eléctrica.

“Building on the success of this impressive project, Ex-Im Bank is demonstrating the importance of its role to fill gaps in financing for creditworthy borrowers,” explained Fred P. Hochberg, chairman and president of Ex-Im Bank. “With this project, we’ve achieved an impressive win all around: for exporters, for U.S. workers, and for energy consumers in Honduras, because the wind-driven generators cost less to operate than their equivalent in fossil-fueled equipment.”

Other U.S. exporters involved in the project will also benefit. They include engineering contractors, financial and legal advisors, and represent jobs in the states of Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas.

The Cerro de Hula Wind Farm now produces about 6% of the electrical power in Honduras. With the additions from this transaction, the wind farm will have 63 wind turbines to provide power to the national electric utility.

Gamesa is a subsidiary of Gamesa Technology Corporation, a sustainable-energy concern headquartered in northern Spain. It ranks as the fourth-largest manufacturer of wind turbines and is in the top ten globally for wind farm development. Gamesa builds photovoltaic power stations and wind farms on land and off-shore. Although the parent company is Spanish, Ex-Im Bank provides financing only for goods and services associated with production by U.S. workers.

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