Cargill has contracted 87 MW of a wind farm in Hand County, South Dakota. That 87 MW is expected to produce about 392 GWh a year. Run the arithmetic and the implied load factor is above 51 percent, which is higher than almost anything else in the US onshore fleet and is the reason the contract is worth signing.
Key takeaways
- Scout Clean Energy signed a virtual power purchase agreement with Cargill for the Sweetland wind project in Hand County, South Dakota, announced on 7 October 2026. The tariff was not disclosed.
- Cargill contracted 87 MW of the 200 MW project, about 44 percent of its capacity, for a term of 12.6 years, including the associated renewable energy credits.
- The contracted 87 MW is expected to generate about 392 GWh a year, which implies a net capacity factor above 51 percent, against roughly 48 percent on the comparable share of Scout's Heart of Texas wind farm.
- Because the agreement is virtual, the electricity is delivered to the regional grid rather than to Cargill, and Cargill receives the environmental attributes while settling the price difference financially.
- Enerdatics records only four US wind PPAs with a retail or consumer-goods offtaker since the start of January 2024, and two of those four disclose no contract term.
What makes 87 MW produce 392 GWh?
An exceptional wind resource, and nothing else. A megawatt of generating capacity running flat out for a full year produces 8,760 MWh. Multiply 87 MW by 8,760 hours and the theoretical maximum is about 762 GWh. The contracted output of roughly 392 GWh is therefore around 51 percent of that ceiling.
That ratio is the net capacity factor, the share of theoretical maximum output a plant actually delivers once wind availability, turbine downtime and losses are accounted for. US onshore wind generally lands between 35 and 45 percent. Above 50 percent is the top of the range, and it is a feature of the eastern Dakotas, where sustained wind speeds and modern turbine heights combine to produce output profiles that look more like baseload than like intermittent generation.
The comparison inside Scout's own portfolio makes the point. When AdventHealth contracted 90 MW of Scout's Heart of Texas wind farm, the expected output was about 380,000 MWh a year, which works out at roughly 48 percent. Three more megawatts in Texas delivers slightly less energy than 87 MW in South Dakota. For a buyer matching annual consumption with annual generation, that difference is the whole negotiation.
What does Cargill actually receive under a virtual PPA?
Renewable energy credits and a financial settlement, not electricity. In a virtual power purchase agreement, the project sells its output into the wholesale market at whatever price the market sets. The buyer and the seller then settle the difference between that floating price and an agreed fixed strike price: if the market price is below the strike, the buyer pays the difference, and if it is above, the buyer receives it. Separately, the buyer takes the renewable energy credits, which are the tradable certificates that let a company claim the generation against its own emissions.
So Cargill's factories keep buying power from their own utilities exactly as before. What changes is that Cargill now holds a long financial position in South Dakota wind prices and a claim on 392 GWh of renewable attributes a year. That is why the structure appeals to a buyer with sites scattered across many utility territories: one contract covers a corporate renewable target without touching any site's physical supply.
The risk sits in the settlement. Sweetland delivers into the Southwest Power Pool, where wind-heavy hours routinely push local prices down and sometimes below zero. Enerdatics' FERC pricing data shows South Dakota wind projects settling across a wide band in the second quarter of 2026: Triple H at $25.11 per MWh, Buffalo Ridge II at $33.50, and Wessington Springs at $47.24. Across SPP wind in the same quarter, settled prices in the sample ran from below zero to about $56 per MWh. A fixed strike against that curve is a bet on where the average lands over twelve and a half years.
Why is the term 12.6 years rather than 12 or 15?
Because the end date was chosen before the length was. Corporate PPAs are normally signed at round terms, and Cargill's own earlier contracts show that: a 130 MW virtual PPA with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners for the Blue Cloud wind farm in SPP ran 15 years when it was announced in March 2024. A term of 12.6 years is what you get when a contract runs to a fixed expiry that suits the buyer's reporting horizon or the project's tax and debt structure, rather than to a round number of years from signature.
It is worth flagging a wrinkle in the record. Leap describes Sweetland as Cargill's second PPA in the Southwest Power Pool, following a 2024 agreement for the Choctaw Fields solar project. Enerdatics separately records the 130 MW Blue Cloud wind virtual PPA, also in SPP and also announced in 2024. Either way, Sweetland is the smallest of Cargill's SPP contracts by contracted capacity, at 87 MW against Blue Cloud's 130 MW, and the shortest by term.
Enerdatics records only four US wind power purchase agreements with a retail or consumer-goods offtaker since the start of January 2024. Two of the four disclose no term at all, and the two that do run 12 and 15 years. In a sample that small, Sweetland's 12.6 years and undisclosed tariff are not an outlier so much as a reminder of how little this corner of the market publishes. Of Cargill's agreements, none carries a disclosed price.
What does the deal signal for US corporate wind?
That the resource is doing the work that subsidy used to. A buyer signing for renewable attributes wants the most generation per contracted megawatt, because the attributes scale with energy rather than capacity. At 51 percent, South Dakota delivers roughly a third more energy per contracted megawatt than a 40 percent site would, which means a smaller contract covers the same corporate target. That is a straightforward reason for an industrial buyer to accept the basis risk of a wind-heavy market like SPP.
It also shows how projects are now sold. Sweetland's 200 MW is being divided, with Cargill taking 44 percent of it, which is the same approach Scout took at Heart of Texas and the same approach visible across the market, from Oracle contracting a slice of the Point Beach nuclear plant to Google splitting 3.6 GW of Constellation output into two contracts. A single large offtaker is no longer the default route to financing a project. Several partial ones are.
Frequently asked questions
How much of the Sweetland wind project has Cargill contracted? Cargill contracted 87 MW of the 200 MW Sweetland wind project in Hand County, South Dakota, which is about 44 percent of its capacity, under a 12.6-year virtual power purchase agreement that includes the renewable energy credits.
What is a virtual power purchase agreement? It is a financial contract rather than a physical supply arrangement. The project sells its power into the wholesale market, the buyer and seller settle the difference between the market price and an agreed fixed strike price, and the buyer receives the renewable energy credits.
What price is Cargill paying for the power? The tariff was not disclosed and Leap records no price for the agreement. For context, Enerdatics' FERC data shows South Dakota wind projects settling between $25.11 and $47.24 per MWh in the second quarter of 2026.
Ready to get deal-ready answers in seconds? Try Enerdatics Leap AI and access verified intelligence across M&A, financings, PPAs, projects, and energy market developments through natural language.
