 |
Virus-free. www.avast.com |
The Wednesday meeting was spent largely on the request of Zia Gas Company getting NM PRC approval on how to bill its customers for the February severe weather which produced a huge spike in gas prices. As you may recall, NM Gas utilities charge for gas at cost and do not make a profit on gas. Because of the cold weather, the price of gas spiked around 100 X normal price. The issue at hand was whether to recover costs in 30 or 60 months. Also, can Zia Gas collect the cost of interest on their loan from their bank to pay their gas bill.
As Zia Gas will send out June bills next week, it is important to get a NM PRC ruling tomorrow, as Monday is a holiday.
Not all Zia Gas clients used gas in February as some, largely in Dona Anna County, use gas for pulling water to irrigate crops and this gas use is from March to September. Thus only clients who used gas in February will be charged over a time period.
New Mexico has about 20 electric co ops who buy power to resell to their customers. Tri State is the major power generator. As you all know, PNM is in the midst of dropping coal fired plants for electricity from renewable sources.
So, I thought the comment from Tri State would be of interest. Briefly, not only are they ahead in making the change, but their rates are coming down!!!
We have reached several significant milestones that advance our
Responsible Energy Plan goals to be cleaner, more affordable and
more flexible for our members. The first of
eight projects to add more than 1,000 megawatts of renewable
resources by 2024 (when 50% of the energy consumed in our
co-op family will be from clean energy) achieved commercial
operations in April. In keeping with our goal to
reduce wholesale rates to our members, we
announced at the end of April a 4 percent wholesale rate
reduction over the next two years. With our rate
wholesale decrease, some members have already announced their own
retail rate decrease or increased capital credit refunds.
We also completed the nomination process for our first-ever "open
season," when our members could express their interest in
self-supplying up to 50% of their power requirements. As we move
through Tri-State’s rapid transformation, a recent
ratings report from Moody's Investors Service reaffirmed both our
investment grade ratings and stable outlook.
Today's ABQ Journal has an article on a recent presentation by PNM and Avangrid about their proposed merger which should be approved by year end.
If you do not get the paper, you can read it from the ABQ Journal web site.
George Richmond
-- George M. Richmond 152 Juniper Hill Road, NE Albuquerque, NM 87122-1913 C: 505-280-2105 E: geomrich1@comcast.net