America's Largest Wind Farm To Begin Operations This Month

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The SunZia Wind Project, the largest wind farm in the United States, is scheduled to kick off operations this month, roughly three years after construction activities began on the project, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a June 12 statement.

“The wind farm, located in New Mexico, has a total net summer generating capacity of 3,650 megawatts (MW) and is composed of 916 wind turbines,” the EIA said.

“SunZia’s capacity is more than three times larger than the next two largest wind farms, Alta Wind in Southern California (1,098 MW) and Great Prairie in northern Texas (1,027 MW).”

Some of the turbines had already begun producing power and contributing to the electricity grid by April this year, during a testing phase. The wind farm, spread across three counties, is coming online after almost two decades of permitting and planning.

Once operational, much of the wind farm’s power will be exported to Southern California and Arizona.

According to Pattern Energy, which built the project, the wind farm and electricity transmission projects are estimated to generate $20.5 billion in economic benefits throughout the project’s life.

Local governments, private landowners, schools, and communities are estimated to receive $1.3 billion in direct payments.

In terms of employment, the project is calculated to have created more than 2,000 construction jobs.

The EIA said that once SunZia comes online, it will push up New Mexico’s net summer wind generating capacity from 3,997 to 7,647 MW. Wind power will account for 45 percent of the state’s energy capacity mix, followed by 19 percent each from solar and natural gas.

“To be able to export the power generated by this project, Pattern Energy also built the SunZia Transmission Project—a 550-mile high-voltage direct current transmission line that goes from the SunZia Wind Project site in central New Mexico to south-central Arizona,” the EIA said.

“Of the SunZia transmission line’s 3,021 MW of power capacity, 2,131 MW will be delivered and consumed in Southern California.”

According to a fact sheet from Pattern Energy, the SunZia wind farm was developed with a “deep commitment to environmental stewardship” and involved discussions with local, regional, and national conservation stakeholders.

The project will provide “clean power” to 3 million Americans annually. It will save more than 7 billion gallons of water per year compared to coal-fired power and avoid more than 13 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to removing roughly 3 million cars from the road.

Curtailing Wind Power

The Trump administration has actively worked to remove incentives for wind power projects, citing concerns about energy security.

In July 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the administration to end federal subsidies for wind and solar energy facilities.

Trump said in the order that these renewable energy sources make America dependent on foreign-controlled supply chains and threaten national security.

Wind and solar power tech rely on materials whose supply chains are controlled by China; for instance, lithium, graphite, cobalt, and manganese are critical to the storage batteries used in wind and solar projects. These rare-earth elements are crucial for the development of wind turbines.

The same month, the Department of the Interior implemented policy measures, such as restoring the congressional mandate to consider all uses of public land and waters equally, to end what it termed “special treatment” accorded to “unreliable energy sources” such as wind power. While fossil fuels can generate power at any time, sources such as wind depend on the weather.

In August 2025, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed an order to rein in wind and solar power projects. 

“One advanced nuclear plant ... produces 33.17 megawatts (MW) per acre, while one offshore wind farm produces approximately 0.006 MW/acre, which is approximately 5,500 times less efficient than one nuclear plant,” the department said at the time.

Earlier this month, seven states, including New York and New Jersey, sued the Trump administration over a deal the federal government made with a French wind farm developer. The deal led to the cancellation of an offshore lease intended to develop wind farms and stalled New York’s offshore wind power plans.

“For more than a year, offshore wind has faced an unprecedented and unrelenting campaign of political interference despite billions in private investment, state commitments, and court rulings,” Liz Burdock, president of industry group Oceantic Network, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, solar power overtook coal in the United States’ electricity mix for the first ever month on record in May, energy think tank Ember said in a June 10 statement.

“Solar supplied a record 12.8 percent of US electricity, while coal fell to 12.2 percent, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever,” the company said.

“The share of coal generation in the US mix has nearly halved in the last five years, falling from 19.7 percent in May 2021 to 12.2 percent in May 2026. In contrast, solar power’s share of the mix more than doubled from 5.4 percent to 12.8 percent over the same period.”