[Lwvcnmtopics] NM PRC meeting June 9

[George Richmond]

Today's meeting was the application of NM Gas Co for approval to recover 
the excess costs of gas incurred in February 2021.

The costs were about $110 million and will be recovered by surcharges to 
bills for a 36 month period starting in July of this year.  The charge 
will be under $5.00/month.

There were no service curtailments which did happen in the last big 
weather event of 2011.

NM Gas made an excellent presentation and the five PRC Commissioners and 
PRC staff helped in the process.  The final order is expected to come 
next week.

An issue came up the NM Gas is looking at its gas storage policy.  Its 
storage gas is based in TX and has to come to NM via pipeline.  So, NM 
Gas is considering adding LNG storage in NM.

Gas Storage is based on the fact that gas in the summer is much less 
expensive so NM gas fills storage at that time, then draws down in 
Dec/Jan and Feb.

PRC approval will be needed before any such changes are made and it is 
likely to be a few months before NM Gas returns with a proposal.

Emera, a very large Canadian Utility, is the parent of NM Gas, so there 
is much expertise available to NM Gas.

Our PRC is very thorough, which will be helpful as the merger of PNM 
into Avangrid will have many hearings from August of this year to final 
action.

I suspect approval.

George Richmond, Observer to the PRC for LWV CNM

Today's meeting began @ 930 AM and ended @ 300 PM


-- 
George M. Richmond
152 Juniper Hill Road, NE
Albuquerque, NM 87122-1913

C: 505-280-2105
E: geomrich1 at comcast.net


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