Clearway Energy Group has signed a virtual power purchase agreement for its Ocotillo wind farm in Big Spring, Texas, with eight companies at once. The project is 55 MW and began operating in 2008. None of the eight is buying electricity. The contract is built around something else, and it is aimed at keeping an old wind farm in service rather than building a new one.
Key takeaways
- Clearway Energy Group announced on 6 March 2024 a virtual power purchase agreement with eight companies for the 55 MW Ocotillo wind farm in Big Spring, Texas, in the ERCOT market.
- The named buyers of output from Clearway's Ocotillo wind farm are Atlassian, Arrow Electronics, Autodesk, Brooks Running, Compose[d], Medallia and Trimble; Enerdatics records the eighth buyer as undisclosed.
- The Ocotillo agreement covers the purchase of renewable energy certificates, which Ever.green, a certificate marketplace, bought on behalf of the corporate buyers.
- Ocotillo began commercial operation in 2008 and has been partially repowered by Clearway, and the long-term certificate contracts are described as providing critical funding for the project's extended lifespan.
- Enerdatics records 23 wind PPAs in ERCOT announced in 2023 and 2024; none discloses a tariff, and Ocotillo is the only one with more than one named buyer.
What are the eight companies actually buying?
Renewable energy certificates, not power. A renewable energy certificate, or REC, is the tradeable record that one megawatt hour of renewable electricity was generated. A company that holds and retires RECs can claim that renewable generation against its own electricity use, wherever that use takes place.
That is why a software company and a running shoe brand can both sign for a wind farm in Big Spring. The power from Ocotillo continues to flow into the ERCOT grid and is sold there. The buyers take the certificates. In a virtual PPA of this kind, no electricity moves between the generator and the buyer. What moves is the environmental claim, and money for it.
The arrangement has a familiar shape at Clearway. The same developer has sold certificates rather than power to manufacturers from its Texas solar complex, the deal in which Toyota Boshoku buys certificates, not power, from Clearway's Texas Solar Nova.
Why does a 2008 wind farm need a new contract?
Because its original economics are ageing out. Ocotillo started commercial operation in 2008, so its turbines have been running for well over a decade. Clearway has partially repowered it, meaning some of the original equipment has been replaced to make better use of the wind at the site.
Repowering costs money. The announcement frames the long-term certificate contracts as providing critical funding for the project's extended lifespan. That is the purpose of the deal: a stream of certificate revenue that helps pay for keeping existing turbines turning, rather than for building new ones.
The trade-off is the same one every contract on an existing asset carries. Buyers here are not causing new capacity to be built. They are extending the life of capacity that already exists. For a 55 MW farm that powers around 19,000 homes and pays tax revenue to Howard County, that has value of its own, but it is a different claim from adding a new project to the grid.
Why split one small wind farm among eight buyers?
Because pooling lets smaller buyers into a project none of them took whole. At 55 MW across eight companies, the average share is under 7 MW. Leap classifies the buyers as technology, services and retail companies rather than heavy industry. For buyers of that kind, a share of a small wind farm can be enough, where a full utility-scale contract would not fit.
That is the gap Ever.green fills. The marketplace bought the certificates on behalf of the corporate buyers, standing between one generator and several small customers. Each buyer gets a share of a single named project without having to negotiate a full contract with the generator.
The same splitting happens in ERCOT at a larger scale, with the buyers signing separately, as in how Scout split its Heart of Texas wind farm among corporate buyers. Ocotillo goes further: all eight buyers come in through one contract.
Enerdatics' data shows how unusual that is. Enerdatics records 23 wind PPAs in ERCOT announced in 2023 and 2024. Nineteen state a contracted capacity, and their median is 150 MW. At 55 MW, Ocotillo is the fourth smallest. It is also the only one of the 23 with more than one named buyer, and none of the 23 discloses a tariff. Ever.green appears in three PPA records in Leap in all, including a 10 MW fixed-price virtual PPA that Ever.green and Watershed signed with Samsara, Stripe and TaskUs in ERCOT in February 2023, with a five-year term.
What does the deal signal for corporate clean energy buying in Texas?
It signals that the corporate market is reaching down to smaller buyers. Large technology companies have signed hundreds of megawatts at a time in ERCOT. A pooled certificate contract lets companies with a fraction of that demand buy into a named project, with a story they can tell about a specific wind farm.
It also signals a second use for corporate contracts: funding the life extension of older assets. As the first generation of Texas wind farms ages, owners will have to decide whether to repower, sell or retire them. Certificate contracts like Ocotillo's give owners another source of revenue to weigh in that decision. For Clearway, the contract turns a partial repowering into something buyers can put their names to, which a merchant sale into the grid could not offer.
What the record leaves open is the price and the term. Leap does not record a contract length or a tariff for the Ocotillo deal, beyond describing the certificate contracts as long-term. Without those, it is not possible to say how much of the repowering cost the eight buyers are covering.
Frequently asked questions
Who signed the Ocotillo wind VPPA with Clearway? The named buyers are Atlassian, Arrow Electronics, Autodesk, Brooks Running, Compose[d], Medallia and Trimble, with an eighth buyer undisclosed. The agreement was announced on 6 March 2024.
What role did Ever.green play in the Ocotillo deal? Ever.green is a renewable energy certificate marketplace. It purchased the certificates from Clearway's Ocotillo wind farm on behalf of the corporate buyers.
How old is the Ocotillo wind farm? The 55 MW Ocotillo wind farm in Big Spring, Texas, began commercial operation in 2008 and has been partially repowered by Clearway Energy Group.
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