Lakeside Energy Acquires 150MW Power Generation Facility From Williams

Chicago, IL - Lakeside Energy LLC (Lakeside), a Chicago-based energy company, recently announced the completion of the acquisition of a 150 MW natural gas-fired power plant in Hazleton, Pennsylvania (Hazleton) from an affiliate of Williams. The acquisition was financed using equity provided by American Securities.

Hazleton currently serves the Pennsylvania-Jersey-Maryland (PJM) regional transmission organization and is an important facility in the transmission-constrained Eastern zone. As a member of PJM, Hazleton will commit its capacity to PJM via the Reliability Pricing Model (RPM) process. PJM's RPM process provides secure, mid-term predictable capacity pricing.

Simultaneous with the closing, Lakeside executed an Energy Services Agreement (ESA) with Eagle Energy Partners, LLC (Eagle), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lehman Brothers. Eagle will be the energy manager for Hazleton during the term of the ESA, and as such, will assist Lakeside with the scheduling of power and gas. Lakeside will operate the facility.

Lakeside intends to complete additional strategic acquisitions in the power generation sector as it strives to build a portfolio with geographic and fuel source diversity. Focused on long-term contracted assets in key geographies, Lakeside's power generation business will target primarily natural gas, coal, biomass and renewable fuel opportunities.

"We are very pleased with this power generation acquisition," said Bill Johnson, CEO of Lakeside. "We look forward to building a substantial enterprise in power generation with Hazleton as a key component."

Jim Kueser, Lakeside Energy's Senior Vice President added, "We are delighted that the acquisition of the Hazleton Facility allows us to capitalize on our operating expertise as we grow our power generation business."

SOURCE: Lakeside Energy LLC