Agencies scramble to avoid summer blackouts

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | February 8, 2022 | Kevin Robinson-Avila

[CedarDave]

Public Service Company of New Mexico consumers will likely face blackouts this summer and in summer 2023 unless the utility and state regulators find emergency solutions to cover expected shortages during peak demand, officials say.

PNM and some commissioners say extending operations for a few months at the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station, scheduled to shut down in June, could resolve immediate problems facing the utility and consumers this summer.

But PNM executives say the utility will almost certainly face critical shortages again in summer 2023 because the PRC has yet to approve new resources to replace some of the power it currently receives from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona, where two PNM leases for electric supply will soon expire.

PNM, New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas and some industry experts say poor decision-making by the PRC on replacing San Juan power with renewable resources without approving adequate back-up generation to ensure grid reliability has created a vulnerable situation in New Mexico’s transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

The need for more adequate utility and regulatory management in the new energy economy is now generating alarm among such elected officials as Balderas, whose office is responsible for enforcing consumer protection measures.

PNM officials and others criticized the PRC for rejecting PNM’s proposal to build a 280-megawatt “peaking” natural gas plant – which can rapidly ramp up and down as needed – alongside new renewable generation when it ruled on San Juan replacement power in 2020.

The PRC instead approved an all-renewable replacement portfolio with only solar energy and back-up battery storage, to be supplied by four large-scale solar facilities, each one to be built separately by different energy developers.

[CedarDave]

A very lengthy article that describes the pitfalls of depending on New Mexico's coming renewable economy.

New Mexico is the number two state in the nation currently for production of oil and natural gas but the enviro-nutters in Santa Fe and the legislature want to ditch it all in the name of preventing climate change, which itself is a fools errand as the loss of carbon is as minuscule as sands on a beach in the overall reversal of climate change. Somehow, rainbows and unicorn farts are supposed to provide for a modern society's energy needs.

[CedarDave]

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[Paladin2]

Why don’t the ‘Rats running NM just go join Old Mexico?

[CedarDave]

Some how my comment in the title got truncated:

(NM going the way of California with radical Dems ditching reliable fossil fuel power)

[BobL]

Nothing personal, but I’ll volunteer to pull the plug on their grid this summer if it wakes up the voters there.

[Dogbert41]

I knew I should have bought those Tesla solar panels with the battery panels...

[logi_cal869]

“Very lengthy”???

---

C’mon, man. Maybe compared to a tweet...

Thanks for posting. I’m keeping an archive of renewable idiocy.

[bgill]

Deport all illegals and there will be more than enough power and everything else.