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Pattern Development acquires 1,000-MW wind, transmission project in New Mexico

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Pattern Development acquires 1,000-MW wind, transmission project in New Mexico

Pattern Energy Group 2 LP said May 21 it has acquired a proposed wind energy facility and related transmission line in New Mexico from Clean Line Energy Partners LLC, and said construction on both is expected to begin construction in 2019.

Both projects, the 1,000-MW Mesa Canyons Wind Farm wind farm in Lincoln County, N.M., and the 140-mile Western Spirit transmission line running from the wind facility to a substation northwest of Albuquerque, N.M., are expected to begin operations in 2020. New Mexico regulators conditionally approved the Mesa Canyons project earlier this year. Both projects will be located at least in part on State Trust Lands and will make lease payments to the state.

The New Mexico Renewable Energy Transmission Authority has been working with Clean Line to co-develop the 345-kV Western Spirit line and will continue that work with Pattern, according to comments from authority Chairman Bob Busch included in a Pattern-issued news release.

Pattern Energy Group 2 LP is also known as Pattern Development. Its owners include renewable energy developer Pattern Energy Group Inc. Pattern Development already owns other wind and electric transmission facilities in New Mexico, and said the Mesa Canyons acquisition will increase its "development footprint" in the Estancia Valley area of New Mexico to more than 3,000 MW.

"With Pattern Development's acquisition of the Western Spirit Transmission Line and the Mesa Canyons Wind Farm, we are one step closer to being able to access and export our state's vast renewable energy resources to major energy markets," Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said in the news release.

Clean Line, a private developer primarily of high-voltage, direct-current transmission lines, has run into challenges with some of its projects and earlier this year sold a portion of one of its planned lines.