On Thursday, Pattern Energy, one of the world’s largest privately owned developers and operators of wind, solar, transmission, and energy storage projects, announced it has successfully completed construction and begun commercial operation on the landmark Western Spirit Wind power projects. Western Spirit Wind is comprised of four wind power facilities totaling more than 1,050 megawatts (MW) located in Guadalupe, Lincoln, and Torrance Counties in central New Mexico.
“The largest renewable energy project in American history is now up and running – right here in New Mexico,” U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich said in connection with the announcement. “Western Spirit encompasses four new utility-scale wind sites that connect rural communities in central New Mexico to local customers and other major energy markets beyond our state’s borders. This project literally changed the map of our state’s energy landscape, allowing New Mexico to help power our nation with clean electrons.”
“Western Spirit Wind is a groundbreaking megaproject that demonstrates large-scale renewables can be developed and built in the United States,” Pattern Energy CEO Mike Garland said. “These projects create significant job opportunities and local economic investments. Western Spirit brought over 1,100 construction jobs to New Mexico, generated local spending, tax revenue and landowner payments in a remote area of New Mexico, and is now delivering enough renewable energy to meet the electricity needs of more than 900,000 Americans. The collaboration of our teams of workers around the state shows what can be achieved – building the largest single-phase wind project in U.S. history in less than one year – a truly remarkable achievement. This is just the beginning for New Mexico – Pattern Energy has committed to $6 billion in upcoming wind energy and related infrastructure projects in the state over the next decade. Together, we are building a cleaner and more sustainable future in New Mexico.”
The four wind power facilities that comprise Western Spirit Wind use a total of 377 GE wind turbines ranging from 2.3 to 2.8 MW in size. The GE turbines utilize various tower heights to optimize the wind capture at each facility.
Pattern Energy says the Western Spirit Wind project will have far-reaching economic benefits for the local area and is projected to provide an estimated $3 million per year for the three counties and two school districts in the project area: benefits that it says will contributed to improved quality of education, services, roads and first responder capabilities for the entire community.
Western Spirit Wind will provide clean, renewable energy to California and New Mexico through long-term power purchase agreements with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, San José Clean Energy, East Bay Community Energy, California Choice Energy Authority and member cities, and international energy company Uniper Global Commodities. Western Spirit Wind will also provide power to New Mexico municipalities, including Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities, through the Uniper Global Commodities power purchase agreement.
The wind power generated by Western Spirit Wind has a complementary generation profile to solar and typically delivers power around the clock. Western Spirit’s wind power will provide resource diversification to western energy markets to help meet customer demand during the crucial early evening hours when demand is high but otherwise available renewable energy supply is typically low.
Last month, Pattern Energy and the New Mexico Renewable Energy Transmission Authority (RETA) announced the completion of the Western Spirit Transmission line, enabling the suite of Western Spirit Wind projects to be connected to the grid. The 155-mile 345 kV transmission line, developed jointly by Pattern Energy and RETA, is delivering wind power from Western Spirit Wind in central New Mexico to the electric grid managed by Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) near Albuquerque. PNM owns and will operate the transmission line.
