The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private-equity firms, has entered the wind business by agreeing to acquire a 612MW portfolio of operating wind farms in upstate New York from Noble Environmental Power, a Connecticut-based developer that has been seemingly dormant since filing for bankruptcy protection in 2016.

Through its Carlyle Power Partners unit, Carlyle will launch a new company known as Zephyr Wind Energy to operate the wind farms – which collectively form the largest portfolio of wind capacity in New York, accounting for a third of the state’s 1.8GW