ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico’s public land commissioner on Monday signed nearly a dozen leases that will clear the way for a major renewable energy developer to erect wind turbines across 230 square miles (595 square kilometers) of state trust land.
Officials are billing Pattern Energy’s planned development in Lincoln, Torrance and San Miguel counties as the largest wind energy project in the western hemisphere.
The company at the end of 2021 brought online four wind farms in central New Mexico totaling more than a gigawatt of capacity for utility customers in California. The new leases will be part of the larger SunZia project, which will ultimately have a capacity of 3,000 megawatts to power homes in more populated markets in the West.
