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I attended the New Mexico Public Regulatory Commission meeting this morning.
Here is some background first:
Our Commissioner for District 1, Cynthia Hall, was re elected for a four year term. However, as Constitutional Amendment 1 passed,
she will serve only two years. In the next legislative session,
the legislature should write enabling legislation, possibly
adopting from some of the
states that now have appointed commissioners. An objective of such legislation would be to create the criteria for creating a list of qualified people to be appointed.
As you can see from the balance of my report, as the nature of the utility industry is changing in a major way, different skills, in science and engineering, and in business, will be needed, as the
energy industry, in the generation and transmission of electric power, will be done much differently than it has been done from the earliest days.
Most meetings begin with approval of agenda, minutes, then routine items prpared by the staff of commission approval.
Today's meeting included a brief presentation by Xcel Energy for
information purposes. I will summarize after providing a
description of Xcel:
Xcel Energy Inc. is a utility holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving more than 3.3 million electric customers and 1.8 million natural gas customers in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Texas and New Mexico in 2017.
The company discussed their business in NM,
which is in the SE part of the state, from Clovis south. The
company also operates in parts of TX and OK. When NM had its
recent cold spell, the Xcel customers in TX lost service from
ice storms.
Also, the NM gas/oil business in SE NM is still growing but at
a slower rate. Xcel pointed out the need for remote meter
reading to save money in reading meters. This practice will
come, in time, to New Mexico. A key point is to how
the upgrades are paid for: Front end charges to PNM customers??
This presentation was for information purposes an Xcel comes in every few months for updates. The company has some renewable generating facilities in NM and will add more as it ends its coal generating plants.
The next presentation, and the most important, was on the 10 year plan for modernizing the Grid System in New Mexico. The full plan is under development and will be completed by next April. A branch of the NM State Government, along with University and National Labs, will work on the presentation. LWV NM may wish to follow and comment.
In the past, a few coal fired plants would generate electric power, then use transmission lines, or a Grid, to send the power to cities/towns for distribution to businesses/households for their electric needs.
The future grid will connect many renewable, solar/wind, generating sites with the Grid which must be more robust, as some of the power generated will come from battery storage and some from renewable generators, and could be sold out of state.
Certainly California is potential client for power produced in New Mexico.
George Richmond,
League Observer to the NM PRC.
-- George M. Richmond 152 Juniper Hill Road, NE Albuquerque, NM 87122-1913 C: 505-280-2105 E: geomrich1@comcast.net