September 20, 2013
New Mexico

Iberdrola wins bid for state’s largest wind farm

Dan Mayfield, Reporter- Albuquerque Business First | Sep 19, 2013 | www.bizjournals.com

The state’s largest wind farm to date will be built by Iberdrola Renewables of Portland, Ore., the State Land Office announced on Thursday.

The El Cabo project will be on 33,600 acres of state trust land in Torrance County and could potentially generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to supply 400,000 homes.

“A new and growing source of income for the State Land Office is renewable energy leasing, which is expected to be the largest growth area for our Commercial Resources Division,” said State Land Commissioner Ray Powell. “Today, there are four existing wind energy projects located on state trust lands that are expected to earn more than $50 million over the life of the projects. There are also nine pending applications that are projected to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in future years.”

This project will be built in several phases over 10 years, and generate 1,600 construction jobs, the state said. Phase I is expected to be a 300-megawatt facility.

“We are grateful to the State Land Office, whose vision and commitment to the sustainable development of state land encourages businesses like ours to explore investing here,” said Mark Stacy, Iberdrola Renewables’ development director. “Winning this bid is an important achievement in our ongoing efforts to bring the El Cabo project to fruition. We look forward to continued collaboration with the State Land Office, Torrance County and other community stakeholders as we work toward making this project a reality and bringing jobs and other economic benefits to the local communities and to the state of New Mexico.”

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/09/20/iberdrola-wins-bid-for-states-largest-wind-farm/