Wind Power News: New Mexico
These news and opinion items are gathered by National Wind Watch to help keep readers informed about developments related to industrial wind energy. They are the products of the organizations or individuals noted and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of National Wind Watch.
EPE true costs
You’ve heard the radio ads and seen the full-page print ads. El Paso Electric touting the solar power from the Santa Teresa and Hatch arrays. You can even see the daily power output on EPE’s website. But EPE never mentions that the Santa Teresa power costs EPE 12.745 cents per kWh, and from Hatch, the solar power costs 11.9 cents per kWh. That’s almost 2.75 times the “base fuel” cost of 4.396 cents per kWh. After applying this month’s Fuel . . .
Partners for New Mexico power grid project lining up
Such a hub would provide more opportunities for buying and selling electricity across the three grids. The transmission infrastructure around the project, if developed and expanded, could allow large-scale wind and solar projects in the Southwest and the Great Plains to access large power markets.
PNM seeks permission for renewable energy fee
New Mexico’s largest electric utility is asking state regulators to approve a fee that would be added to customers’ bills to recover costs associated with developing renewable energy projects. Public Service Company of New Mexico announced its filing with the Public Regulation Commission on Wednesday, the same day it dedicated the last of five solar plants that are aimed at helping the utility met the state’s renewable energy mandates. If approved, the annually adjusted charge would add about $1.38 a . . .
Wind-power project pushed back two years
Construction of a transmission line to carry renewable energy wind power from Lincoln County to metropolitan Phoenix slipped back two years to 2015, a representative of the Sun Zia Project told county commissioners last week. Martin Bailey, real property manager for SouthWestern Power Group, said the proposed route stretches about 460 miles from Lincoln County through Luna County, Hidalgo County and Casa Grande, Ariz. The transmission line will provide a delivery capacity of 3,000 megawatts, and all without any tax . . .
Conservation-minded women come together at Audubon event
Solar and wind projects, while desirable, “have an enormous footprint on landscapes and wildlife habitat,” [Martha Desmond] said, calling it the “green dilemma.” “Wind [projects] affect more land per unit of energy produced than hydrocarbon.”
Birds merit consideration from wind-farmers
Wind energy, for all its progress in recent decades, is still in its childhood — and to adults watching it grow, that can mean trouble. The noise and the unsightliness of the turbines might be mere nuisances, but the threat they pose to bird populations is what puts environmentalists in a quandary: Wind-spun electricity beats the coal-fired steam variety hands down, but what those propeller blades do to birds appears horrific. In Tuesday’s New Mexican was a front-page story about . . .
Wind power vs. whooping crane on the prairie?
The term of art is incidental take. It refers to the “harassment, harm, pursuit, hunting, shooting, wounding, killing, trapping, capture, or collection of any threatened or endangered species.” Incidental take is in the news now because the Obama administration has given notice that it is evaluating issuing an incidental take permit (ITP) – a free pass of sorts – in a 200-mile-wide corridor from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico where whooping cranes migrate. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service . . .
PRC’s wind demands a lot of costly hot air
Perhaps state utility regulators have decided that tilting at this windmill wasn’t a productive use of its time. The Public Regulation Commission appeared to be thumbing its nose at the law and overstepping its authority by directing the state’s largest producer of electricity to buy wind power to meet its renewable energy requirements. The commission recently ordered Public Service Company of New Mexico to spend up to $6 million annually to buy wind power to meet its 2011 requirement that . . .
PNM challenges commission order to buy wind power
Public Service Company of New Mexico is challenging a directive from state regulators that it buy more wind power for its electricity customers. A PNM spokeswoman initially said the utility would comply with a state Public Regulation Commission order by spending up to $6 million annually for wind power from a New Mexico plant. But the company changed course last week and now says it will fight the commission’s order. PNM is the state’s largest electricity supplier with about 500,000 . . .
PRC orders PNM to acquire more wind energy
SANTA FE — Can the state Public Regulation Commission tell an electric company how to run its business if the firm is obeying the law? The commission, in a 5-0 vote, ordered Public Service Company of New Mexico to buy more wind power and use it to supply electricity. The company, typically called PNM, is challenging the directive as excessive and expensive government interference. With about 500,000 customers, PNM is the state’s largest electricity supplier. Like all utility companies in . . .
