By ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL
August 30th, 2021
Renewable power developer Pattern Energy is nearing completion of a mammoth wind project in east central New Mexico that, once fully operational in December, will constitute the largest single-phase renewable energy build-out in U.S. history.
The company broke ground last December on its Western Spirit project, which includes four wind farms with 1,050 megawatts of joint generating capacity, plus a new, 155-mile transmission line that will carry the electricity from New Mexico’s gusty eastern plains to California markets.
At more than 1 gigawatt, the Western Spirit farms will be twice the size of Xcel Energy’s 522-MW Sagamore Wind Farm in Roosevelt County, which was pegged as the state’s largest wind facility when it came online last December. Likewise, the new Western Spirit transmission line is the biggest such project to be constructed in New Mexico in 35 years.
