Bureau of Land Management Advances Major Southwest Transmission Project

May 18, 2023

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
May 18, 2023

The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management on May 18 announced a record of decision that advances the SunZia Southwest Transmission Project that will carry up to 4,500 megawatts of primarily renewable energy from New Mexico to markets in Arizona and California.

The SunZia Southwest Transmission Project consists of two planned 500-kilovolt transmission lines located across approximately 520 miles of federal, state and private lands between central New Mexico and central Arizona.

The permitted route originates at a planned substation in Torrance County, New Mexico, and terminates at the existing Pinal Central Substation in Pinal County, Arizona. The project traverses Lincoln, Socorro, Sierra, Luna, Grant, Hidalgo, Valencia, and Torrance counties in New Mexico and Graham, Greenlee, Cochise, Pinal, and Pima counties in Arizona.

The BLM completed the review period for this project — from the Notice of Intent to the Record of Decision released on May 18 — in less than two years.

This is one of the final steps the BLM needs to take before the project proponent can formally break ground.