Argo Infrastructure Partners has acquired a 50 percent interest in Smoky Mountain Holdings, which owns and operates a 378-megawatt portfolio of four hydroelectric generating and storage facilities in Tennessee and North Carolina.
The system also includes an 86-mile transmission line, enabling the carbon-free electricity to be dispatched through multiple market interconnections in the PJM, TVA or Duke Carolinas power grids. The Smoky hydro portfolio has the capacity to generate an annual average of 1.4 million megawatt-hours of carbon-free power and is estimated to avoid 1.1 million tons of carbon-dioxide emissions per year.
Argo acquired the stake in Smoky from Brookfield, which will continue to hold the remaining 50 percent stake, along with its institutional partners.
“We and our investor partners are pleased to invest in the Smoky portfolio,” said Brice Soucy, principal at Argo. “As one of the largest-scale renewable and hydroelectric assets in the Tenn