Suzlon Group, the world's fifth largest wind turbine manufacturer, today announced the strategic sale of the 240 MW Big Sky Wind Farm in Illinois to EverPower Wind Holdings, Inc. Suzlon Group had recently acquired the Big Sky wind farm from Edison Mission Energy via their fully owned US-based subsidiary Suzlon Wind Energy Corp (SWECO). 

Suzlon Group today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement with EverPower to sell the project located in Illinois, about 95 miles west of Chicago. 

This acquisition of Big Sky by EverPower makes it the nation's 18th largest wind generator, with a combined capacity of 752MW in the US in winder power generation.

''We are very pleased to welcome EverPower to the Suzlon family of customers,'' said Duncan Koerbel, CEO of Suzlon Wind Energy Corporation and CTO of the Suzlon Group. ''The SWECO OMS team looks forward to partnering with EverPower to maintain the high standards of availability and reliability at Big Sky that we have seen since operations started at Big Sky four years ago.'' 

''We are pleased to add this project to our portfolio,'' said James Spencer, president and chief executive officer of EverPower. ''It fits into both our overall growth strategy and our strategy of building our portfolio in liquid markets like PJM.'' 

''This sale of Big Sky Wind Farm to a sound long term investor like EverPower is an important part of our dis-investment strategy to hive off non-core assets, and the net proceeds of the sale will be used to fuel our business growth,'' said Kirti Vagadia, group head - finance at Suzlon. 

Shares of the company gained Rs 1.01, or 7.23%, to trade at Rs 14.97. The total volume of shares traded was 4,075,519 at the BSE (12.35 p.m., Wednesday).