Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) has issued a request for proposals or RFP for renewable energy projects that will decrease its dependence on fossil fuels and help the company meet state renewable energy mandates.
PNM seeks multiple proposals for wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal and bio-fuel generation that can be available no later than 2015.
Beginning in 2015, PNM requires a total of 375,000 MWh of new qualifying renewable energy per year supplied through company-owned projects, power purchase agreements or through purchases of renewable energy certificates from other renewable generators in New Mexico. The RFP does not include electric energy generated by fossil fuels such as natural gas or coal or by nuclear power.
Currently, New Mexico requires PNM to have a renewable energy portfolio that equals 10 percent of its retail energy sales, a goal PNM will achieve in 2013 and 2014 from a mix of solar, wind, and geothermal sources and its solar distributed generation program. In 2015, the state renewable requirement increases to 15 percent and to 20 percent by 2020. New Mexico also has a renewable resource diversity requirement of 20 percent solar, 20 percent wind, 10 percent non-wind/non-solar and 1.5 percent distributed generation that becomes 3 percent in 2015.
The deadline for proposal submissions is Jan. 31, 2013. A pre-bid conference for those planning to submit proposals is planned for Dec. 10, 2012.