Salt River Project, the biggest electricity provider in the greater Phoenix area, is buying 600 megawatts of wind power from Pattern Energy’s SunZia project in New Mexico.
The agreement will triple the amount of wind energy feeding SRP’s grid, enough new power to serve hundreds of thousands of homes. SRP will start receiving energy this fall and ramp up to the full amount by summer 2027, the company said.
SunZia is the largest wind farm in the United States, an $11 billion project that pairs thousands of wind turbines with a 550-mile transmission line stretching across the Southwest. At full capacity, the project can generate enough electricity for about 1 million homes.
The deal supports SRP’s plan to more than double its power system by 2035 as demand surges across the Phoenix metro area, driven by population growth, data centers and extreme heat.
“This project will triple the amount of wind energy on SRP’s grid, helping us make progress toward our carbon reduction goals,” SRP chief power system executive Bobby Olsen said in a statement.
SRP currently serves about 1.2 million customers and draws power from a mix of natural gas, solar, hydro, wind and battery storage. The utility had 288 megawatts of wind energy before Wednesday’s announcement.
