SunZia, the largest renewable energy infrastructure project in U.S. history, has closed a $546 million preferred equity investment from Nuveen Energy Infrastructure Credit (EIC), arriving weeks after the project reached full commercial operation in New Mexico and Arizona.
The financing marks Nuveen EIC’s largest preferred tax equity allocation to date and anchors a new preferred investment strategy the platform is launching to provide capital to developers of large-scale energy infrastructure. Including this transaction, Nuveen EIC and its coinvestors have now committed close to $1.5 billion to SunZia across four separate investments.
Capacity
Developed by Pattern Energy, SunZia pairs a 3,650-megawatt wind farm across Lincoln, Torrance and San Miguel counties in central New Mexico with a 550-mile high-voltage direct current transmission line carrying that power into Arizona and, ultimately, Southern California. The wind farm’s capacity is more than three times larger than the next two largest wind farms in the country, Alta Wind in Southern California and Great Prairie in northern Texas. The project began delivering power to Arizona and California on June 18, 2026, after nearly two decades of development and construction.
The project traces back to 2006, when SouthWestern Power Group began planning an interstate transmission line between Arizona and New Mexico. Pattern Energy acquired the transmission line project from SouthWestern Power Group in July 2022, and groundbreaking for the transmission line followed in September 2023.
A Post-Construction Financing Structure
Nuveen EIC’s investment is structured as preferred equity rather than construction debt — a distinction that reflects the project’s stage. Preferred tax equity typically enters after construction risk has been retired, allowing an investor to capture the tax credits a renewable project generates while providing the developer liquidity against an asset that is already operating and generating revenue. That timing sets this transaction apart from earlier project-level financing rounds, which funded SunZia’s build-out before it went online.
“SunZia represents exactly the kind of consequential infrastructure our platform was built to finance,” said Don Dimitrievich, Head of Nuveen Energy Infrastructure Credit. “We are proud to partner with Pattern Energy on the largest clean energy project in U.S. history, and to anchor our new preferred investment strategy with a landmark transaction of this scale.”
Kenji Ogawa, SVP of Project Finance at Pattern Energy, said the deal reflects confidence in the project’s execution. “Transactions like this are essential to scaling the energy infrastructure needed today, and we’re proud to help advance that model through SunZia,” he said.
Pattern Energy CEO Hunter Armistead said the completed project shows large, complex infrastructure can still get built in the U.S. “We did this the right way, we did it on time and on budget,” Armistead said, crediting partnerships with local communities and landowners.
U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, who has pushed for the project since joining Congress, called SunZia’s completion a milestone more than 18 years in the making. Elliot Mainzer, president and CEO of the California Independent System Operator, said large-scale transmission projects like SunZia are essential to meeting rising demand and strengthening grid reliability across the West.
Impact
Locally, the project’s impact is also being felt through direct investment. Pattern Energy says SunZia will direct over $20 billion into New Mexico and Arizona communities, including $1.3 billion in direct payments to local governments, schools, counties and landowners over the project’s first 30 years of operation. Barbara Sultemeier, a board member of the Corona Landowners Association through the Lincoln County Community Foundation, said the project is strengthening the local tax base and supporting schools and public services in the region.
Construction, which began in September 2023, supported more than 2,000 jobs at peak activity and is expected to sustain more than 100 permanent operations jobs across New Mexico and Arizona.
The transmission line’s completion is significant beyond SunZia itself. Since SunZia began testing in April 2026, California’s grid operator has reported record-breaking wind generation multiple times, with wind output on May 15 reaching 8,294 megawatts — nearly 1,600 megawatts above the previous record before SunZia power entered the state. SunZia’s nighttime wind generation complements California’s daytime solar supply, addressing a gap in the state’s renewable portfolio.
Milbank LLP served as legal advisor to Nuveen EIC. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP served as legal advisor to Pattern Energy.
A different trend playing out on the East Coast
Additionally, SunZia’s completion stands in contrast to a very different trend playing out on the East Coast. Duke Energy recently agreed to terminate its Carolina Long Bay offshore wind lease off North Carolina in exchange for a $129 million federal reimbursement, part of a broader wave of offshore wind cancellations reshaping the sector. While SunZia demonstrates the scale onshore wind and transmission projects can still achieve, offshore wind is facing a markedly harder path, with developers and the federal government increasingly redirecting investment toward other forms of power generation.
Factsheet: SunZia
- Investment: $546 million preferred equity, closed by Nuveen Energy Infrastructure Credit (EIC)
- Total Nuveen EIC commitments to SunZia: approximately $1.5 billion across four investments
- Developer: Pattern Energy
- Wind capacity: 3,650 megawatts, 916 turbines
- Location: Lincoln, Torrance and San Miguel counties, New Mexico
- Transmission line: 550-mile high-voltage direct current (HVDC) line to Arizona, feeding into the western grid including Southern California
- Homes powered at full capacity: approximately 1 million
- Community investment: over $20 billion in New Mexico and Arizona, including $1.3 billion in direct payments to local governments, schools, counties and landowners over 30 years
- Construction jobs: more than 2,000 at peak; over 100 permanent operations jobs projected
- Development timeline: initiated 2006; construction began September 2023; reached full commercial operation June 18, 2026
- Status: Fully operational
- Legal advisor to Nuveen EIC: Milbank LLP
- Legal advisor to Pattern Energy: Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
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