DBRS Confirms Trillium Windpower, LP Series 1 Senior Secured Amortizing Notes at BBB (Stable)

DBRS Limited (DBRS) has today confirmed the rating of BBB with a Stable trend on the Series 1 Senior Secured Amortizing Notes (the Notes) of Trillium Windpower, LP (the Issuer), the special-purpose entity created to finance and indirectly own the 22.9 megawatt (MW) Conestogo and 124.4 MW Summerhaven wind projects located in Wellington and Haldimand Counties in Ontario (the Projects). Since July 2014, the Issuer is indirectly and wholly owned by NextEra Energy Operating Partners, LP, in turn partly owned by NextEra Energy, Inc. (NextEra).

DBRS has based this rating update on the operational and financial performance of the Issuer and its Projects since the Notes were issued. This covers the first three calendar quarters of 2014. Operational performance has been good, with the average turbine availability in the 98% to 99% range for the first three quarters of 2014. There have been no reported major component failures.

Four full quarters of energy sales data are available, covering October 2013 to September 2014. In this period, total energy sales across the projects was 394.4 gigawatt hours (GWh), representing 99.6% of the P50 production forecast, or 19.7% above the P90 production forecast used in the rating case. Although encouraging, it is too early to draw meaningful conclusions regarding the forecast of wind resources, and hence energy generation. The wind resource was, in fact, slightly better than indicated by the energy sales, or 0.6% above the P50 production forecast, inferred due to the loss of approximately 4.0 GWh from generation curtailment of Summerhaven.

Both projects have now received acknowledgement letters from the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) that each submitted Domestic Content Report is complete, a key requirement under the Projects’ Feed-In Tariff Contracts (FIT Contracts) with the OPA. The acoustic audit requirements of the Projects’ Renewable Energy Approvals are not yet complete. Data collection has ended and final reports for each project are being prepared. The Issuer expects the projects to be in compliance with the sound level limits identified in the Renewable Energy Approvals.

Notes:
All figures are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted.

The related regulatory disclosures pursuant to the National Instrument 25-101 Designated Rating Organizations are hereby incorporated by reference and can be found by clicking on the link to the right under Related Research or by contacting us at info@dbrs.com.

This rating is endorsed by DBRS Ratings Limited for use in the European Union.

The applicable methodology is Rating Wind Power Projects, which can be found on our web site under Methodologies.

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