"AEP to Spend $4.5 Billion on the Largest Wind Farm in the U.S."

"U.S. utility giant American Electric Power Co. is looking to invest $4.5 billion in a massive wind farm spread across Oklahoma’s panhandle and a new transmission line that will carry the power to customers.

AEP will seek the necessary approvals from Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas to buy the 2,000-megawatt Wind Catcher farm from developer Invenergy LLC, the Columbus, Ohio-based utility owner said in a statement Wednesday. The company is expected to file plans with state regulators on July 31.

The deal marks AEP’s largest renewable energy project ever and underscores a dramatic shift in America’s power resources. Once the largest consumer of coal in the U.S., AEP is now shuttering money-losing coal plants and diversifying its power mix along with the rest of the utility sector as renewable energy becomes cheaper and coal units more costly to maintain. Wind Catcher is set to become the largest wind farm in the nation and the second-biggest in the world, according to Invenergy."

Chris Martin and Jim Polson report for Bloomberg July 26, 2017.