ENERGY
State Land Office awards lease to proposed wind farm near Corona
Project could end up being one of the largest in US, totaling 1,100 megawatts
A renewable energy developer wants to build what could be one of the largest wind farms in the nation in Torrance County, totaling 1,100 megawatts of capacity.
New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard on Wednesday said her office signed an agreement with the developer for a 212-megawatt portion of the wind energy project, about an hour southeast of Albuquerque.
鈥淭here鈥檚 no offtaker right now,鈥� said Tom Garrity, spokesperson for Southwestern Power Group, the project developer, when asked to whom the power will be sold. 鈥淭here鈥檚 not a customer.鈥�
Southwestern Power Group is a subsidiary of MMR Group, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, construction services firm. SWPG bills itself as an independent developer of utility scale generation and transmission assets based in Phoenix.
Garcia Richard鈥檚 announcement follows a decision in April by the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission to approve the entire 1,100-MW project. All three commissioners issued an approval order saying that no protests were filed to the application.
The developer is paying $340,000 to the State Land Office for rights to lease 10,160 acres, or 16 square miles, of state trust land for what it鈥檚 calling the .
Garcia Richard said the project will generate $98.9 million in revenue for New Mexico schools over the lifetime of the lease. The project is about 8 miles northwest of Corona and about 15 miles southeast of Willard in central New Mexico, according to the project application.
The State Land Office is charging the project owner $2 per acre in first-year rent for the land, totaling $20,320.80 annually. When the wind farm becomes operational, the rent will be $4,000 per megawatt of installed capacity. If the developer builds the full 212 megawatts, that amounts to $848,000 annually for the State Land Office.
Additional fees on the lease include a $10 per acre ground disturbance charge, amounting to $101,604, as well as a charge of $5,000 per wind turbine generator installed for the project.
SWPG said the project will be constructed on another 51,149 acres of private land. The company says it has entered into leases with private landowners.
A 345-kilovolt tie-line 鈥� buffered by a 200-foot right-of-way 鈥� will traverse 16 miles of private lands and 4 miles of state lands. The project will also require at least four electrical substations. Torrance County gave the project a special-use permit.
Developers plan to use 243 wind turbine generators.
鈥淭his site was selected as the proposed location for the Project due to its abundant wind resource, the availability of suitable land, and absence of significant land use constraints,鈥� the application to the PRC reads. 鈥淭he land area available for the Project is sufficient and provides micro-siting flexibility for an efficient and well-designed wind generation project of this capacity.鈥�
The company applied for the lease in August 2024. Construction is projected to start in 2027 and commercial operations in 2029. It must undergo a series of interconnection studies before connecting to the electric grid.
Garcia Richard鈥檚 announcement said that when she first took office in 2019, there were about 400 megawatts of renewable energy leases on state lands.
With this most recent agreement, there will be 3,271 megawatts of wind and solar energy through 56 different leases, the announcement said.
鈥淧rojects like this one are job creators in our rural communities and create long-lasting revenue streams for our public schools and other institutions,鈥� Garcia Richard said.
Justin Horwath covers tech and energy for the Journal. He can be reached at jhorwath@abqjournal.com.
