Mendota Hills
Mendota Hills Wind Farm is an onshore wind facility with 76.2 MW of nameplate capacity in Lee County, Illinois. The site is owned and operated by Leeward Renewable Energy, which acquired the project from original developer Navitas Energy. Commissioned in November 2003, Mendota Hills was the first utility-scale wind project built in Illinois. In 2019 Leeward completed a full-scale repowering, replacing 63 legacy Gamesa turbines with 29 Siemens Gamesa SG 2.6-126 units and raising capacity from roughly 50 MW to 76 MW. Siemens Gamesa provides ongoing operations and maintenance for the repowered turbines under an agreement with Leeward. The plant sells its output under a long-term power purchase agreement with Digital Realty, supplying about 276,000 MWh of wind energy annually. Mendota Hills interconnects with ComEd and settles in the PJM market.