The 16-year wait is over: US greenlights Pattern's $3bn SunZia wind transmission line
The project will initially deliver 3GW of wind energy from Mexico to Arizona for grid connections to California and adjacent states starting in 2026
The 16-year wait is over for Pattern Energy’s $3bn SunZia merchant wind transmission project.
“Those include signing the Right of Way Grant and satisfying all permit conditions so that Bureau of Land Management (BLM) can issue our Notice to Proceed, which allows us to start construction on federal land,” he said. The right-of-way also includes privately owned property.
Pattern anticipates construction will get fully underway this summer. The San Francisco-based company acquired the project last July from developer SouthWestern Power Group, which initially filed for federal approval in 2008.
BLM is an agency within the Department of Interior (DoI) that administers 247.3 million acres (1 million km2) of federal land, mainly in 12 western states.
Laura Daniel-Davis, principal deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management at DoI, said the agency is “committed to expanding clean energy development to address climate change, enhance America’s energy security and provide for good-paying union jobs.”
Earlier this month, the company announced that Quanta Services will build the line and HVDC converter stations and Blattner, a Quanta company, will construct the wind farm complex and associated switchyard.
SunZia, along with a handful of similar projects, had come to symbolise bureaucratic and politicised federal permitting processes blocking interstate merchant power lines and US clean energy growth.
Overhauling federal permitting processes for infrastructure is a priority for President Joe Biden, at least for zero-carbon, as the glacial pace of approvals threatens to undermine his ambitious climate agenda by slowing private investment and the country's energy transition.
Biden threw his support behind a permitting reform bill advanced by Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, even as other Democratic and Republican lawmakers have introduced various competing bills in Congress. There is no clarity if any of them will pass.
Meanwhile, his cabinet departments recently signed a memorandum of understanding to expedite federal siting, permitting, and construction of electric transmission infrastructure in recognition their failure to work together efficiently has impeded capacity expansion.
(Copyright)