By Kennedy Maize
SunZia lives. The 3.5-GW wind farm and associated 550-mile, 525-kV high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line began delivering power June 18 from its site in Torrance County in central New Mexico to the Palo Verde substation in central Arizona and further transmission to California.
The $11 billion project consists of 674 GE Vernova wind turbines (3.6 MW each) and 242 Vestas 4.5-MW turbines, the transmission infrastructure, and AC/DC conversion stations. 
Hunter Armistead, CEO of project developer and owner Pattern Energy of San Francisco said, “SunZia proves that we can still build the consequential infrastructure this country needs. We did this the right way, we did it on time and on budget – in genuine partnership with the local communities and landowners who trusted us, with the environmental stewardship this unique landscape deserves, and with the determination to see something through that many thought was too big and too complex to finish.” Project construction began in September 2023.
It wasn’t an easy path from conception to operation for SunZia. It was originally planned in 2006 as a conventional AC power line, backed by a consortium led by Phoenix-based Southwestern Power Group, a regional developer of electric generation and transmission, and included investor-owned Tucson Electric Power, and two large western public power systems, Salt River Project in Phoenix, and Tri-State Transmission and Generation Association.
After a lengthy planning process, including federal Bureau of Land Management approval, the Arizona Corporation Commission in 2016 approved the transmission project. In 2018, the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission rejected the project, calling for more information. The New Mexico regulators then approved it at the end of 2022.
During that regulatory struggle, Pattern Energy in 2018 bought two planned New Mexico wind farms, totaling 3,000-MW, which the New Mexico commission had approved. Pattern Energy bought the transmission line project from Southwestern in mid-2022.
Predictably, the project, particularly the transmission line, faced opposition in the state and federal courts from local and national environmental groups and two native tribes. Ultimately, the project got underway.
Pattern Energy’s history begins in 2009, when energy-focused private equity firm Riverstone Holdings bought out Babcock & Brown’s North American wind energy group and its development pipeline for an undisclosed amount. They named the new asset Pattern Energy. In 2025, a consortium headed by APG Asset Management N.V. (APG), on behalf of the largest Dutch pension fund, ABP, and Australian Retirement Trust (ART) bought out the Riverstone Holdings in Pattern.
According to Pattern Energy, this consortium “is now an owner in Pattern Energy alongside Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and Pattern management. Financial details were not disclosed.”
Elliot Mainzer, CEO of the California Independent System Operator, which is expanding its reach across the region, said, “Large-scale transmission is essential to meeting the West’s growing energy needs and strengthening reliability across the grid.
“Projects of this scale help deliver energy reliably to areas of rising demand, improve the movement of power across states and support a more resilient, flexible, and affordable electric system. SunZia represents the kind of long-term infrastructure investment needed to serve customers today and prepare the grid for the future.”
Dennis Wamsted, an energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, told the Los Angeles Times, “This is a milestone, there’s no doubt about it. They’re tapping into a great wind resource in New Mexico, and that wind resource is now going to be used across the Southwest. It’s good for consumers everywhere, and it’s really good for folks who are in favor of a transition away from fossil fuels.”
The LA Times noted that much of the SunZia power “will come when the wind picks up at night, complementing California’s abundant daytime solar power, and batteries, which discharge for a few hours around sunset.”
SunZia’s arrival is also a welcome antidote to the endless, mindless Trump administration fatuous blather about “energy dominance,” an entirely meaningless phrase. Trump and his DOE appear to be on a crusade to take the U.S. back to the 1950s and 1960s when it comes to electric energy.
The energy markets aren’t playing along. lobal Genergy think tank Ember reported last month that solar “overtook coal generation in the US electricity mix for the first month on record in May 2026….Solar supplied a record 12.8% of US electricity, while coal fell to 12.2%, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever.”
Ember analyst Nicolas Fulghum said, “Overtaking coal for the first month on record shows just how far solar has come, from a niche contributor to the third-largest and fastest-growing source of power in the US electricity system. From Texas to California, markets across the US are betting on solar to meet rising power needs.” With SunZia, add wind.
The Quad Report, covering energy policy and politics