The largest wind energy project in U.S. history is now online, delivering power from a massive array in New Mexico to Arizona and California — and signaling a new era for sending clean electricity across the West.

Nearly two decades in the making, the estimated $11-billion SunZia project from Pattern Energy is now fully operational, company officials said Thursday. It’s made up of 916 turbines that can produce up to 3.65 gigawatts of electricity, making it potentially more powerful than the Hoover Dam.

It’s also more than three times bigger than either of the next two largest U.S. wind farms, Alta Wind in Kern County and Great Prairie in northern Texas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

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Crucially, the project also includes a 550-mile high-voltage direct-current transmission line that delivers wind power from New Mexico to the Palo Verde substation in Arizona, where it then feeds into Southern California. In all, some two-thirds of the power sent across the line will be delivered to the state.

Experts say the project already has begun making a difference on the grid: Since SunZia began testing in April, the state’s Independent System Operator, CAISO, has reported record-breaking amounts of wind power on the California grid at least five times, according to Dennis Wamsted, an energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

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The New Mexico region was selected in part for its strong and consistent winds, comparable to those off the coast of Morro Bay.

Much of it will come when the wind picks up at night, complementing California’s abundant daytime solar power, and batteries, which discharge for a few hours around sunset.

Solar energy in California is maxed out. It’s actually a bit lower this year than last year according to Grid Status:

When curtailment doesn’t occur, CAISO sets records. Simple as that. The market exists in a state where the gate on peak solar output isn’t more capacity (although it can help), but the level at which curtailment is occurring. This is particularly evident when comparing recent record days and their temporal neighbors that didn’t set a new peak themselves.

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As with solar, wind curtailments jumped. We can clearly see the tension between resources as curtailments peak in the afternoon, exactly when both utility and BTM solar generation are strongest and when net load levels are at their lowest.

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Natural gas generation continues to decline, and fell precipitously over the evening and overnight periods compared to 2024 and 2025. Here, we see a familiar story, solar pressuring gas during midday, then battery discharge shifting solar later, a period which now extends through the evening.

Also, California used to export solar power, but neighboring states have their own solar now.