James B. Pepper Rutland | MMR Southwestern Power Group and the Sunzia Transmission Line Featured in the Wall Street Journal

BATON ROUGE, LA –MMR’s Southwestern Power Group is featured in the Wall Street Journal discussing the permitting hurdles involved in developing the largest, single-phase renewable transmission project in U.S. history, the SunZia Transmission Line. SunZia consists of a 550-mile bi-directional ± 525 kV high-voltage direct current transmission line between central New Mexico and south-central Arizona. SunZia provides the capacity to transport up to 3,000 MW of clean, renewable energy for more than 2.5 million Americans. David Getts, MMR’s general manager of Phoenix-based Southwestern Power Group, said that when the project was conceived in 2006, the company thought it would receive its permits in about five years. “We didn’t honestly know enough to know what we were getting into,” Getts said. “And of course, here we are 17 years later.” MMR's Southwestern Power Group sold Phase I of the Sunzia Transmission Line Project to Pattern Energy in the summer of 2022. MMR has maintained all rights to Phase II, the RioSol Transmission Line 2, that includes the equity, interest and buildout. The RioSol High Voltage Alternating Current (HVAC) transmission line will have a capacity of 1,500 MW, enough to power approximately five hundred thousand homes in rural New Mexico and Arizona, designed for interconnection to regional utilities, along its 550-mile route. RioSol is slated to begin construction in 2026 and begin full operation in 2028.