In this one piece, we include three post entries from Retake,

• Retake’s original piece outlining the real reasons for this merger that included guest commentary from Mariel Nanasi and New Energy Economy, a most revealing video from Maine environmental advocates resisting the insidious work of Avangrid-owned subsidiary, Central Maine Power
• Retake’s follow up to our initial coverage, but this time focused on the findings of the PRC Hearing Examiner, findings that found a series of concerns about Avangrid’s history of being a bad corporate actor and the implications for NM and offers links to the NM Attorney General and speaking points so you can express your concerns about the NM AG folding his cards and supporting the merger; and
• A second guest post from Ron Flax Davidson on an overlooked piece to the puzzle and yet another example of corporate thievery and malfeasance. Ron also offers contact information for the PRC commissioners who will make the decision on the merger and the Governor, who true to her history, is aligning with industry.

Please share. This is so important and very few understand the nuances in this deal and it is always the details where corporations work their magic. After failing to provide sufficient detail in their PRC proposal to approve the merger, Avangrid/PNM did what is typical: submit over 2000 pages of documentation in which will be buried all kinds of loopholes and escape hatches to prevent Avangrid from being held accountable and to allow the huge payout to PNM—at ratepayer expense. As more information becomes available, we will build out this document as the warehouse for all info and actions on this case. For now a three part saga.

Part I: The Exxon of Renewables, Avangrid Wants to Extract & Export Our Solar and Wind at Ratepayer Expense…and so much more!

Before we turn our post over to New Energy Economy, who penned the important commentary that follows, I want to inject my own thoughts on this merger.

I have wondered what the motivation might be for Avangrid’s acquisition and their purchase price that exceeded PNM’s value at the time of the acquisition. In examining the experience of residents of Maine who are served by Central Maine Power (CMP), a subsidiary of Avangrid, two things jump out at me:

1. The motivation for Avangrid paying such a steep price for PNM; and
2. The nefarious ways in which Avangrid has behaved in Maine, putting profit over the environment and the rate payers. After NEE’s commentary, I’ve provided a VERY compelling video of a webinar conducted by the Natural Resources Council of Maine. It outlines CMP’s (Avangrid’s) plans to construct transmission lines through the heart of Maine’s pristine mountains, so they can import hydroelectric power from Canada. It isn’t just that this plan would mar mountains that have been protected for over a century, offering few jobs, but it also would diminish the capacity to tap Maine’s own potential for generating their own renewable energy via its immense offshore wind capacity.
   
   It isn’t just that this is a bad plan, but the ways in which CMP has tried to move this forward were duplicitous. Rather than going public and seeking public approval, they met privately with leadership from towns all along the proposed transmission corridor to seek their approval. However, once people learned of these agreements, public hearings occurred and, as reported in the video, 27 of those towns have rescinded their agreements and now oppose the corridor.

As to the motivation for Avangrid overpaying to purchase PNM, Utility Dive found that NM has vast wind and solar potential for generating more than enough power to meet its own energy needs with significant renewable energy available for export elsewhere. What’s more, as reported by Green Tech Media, there is a demonstrated need for transmission lines to California and Arizona as they have set high and immanent goals of achieving 100% renewable energy without the resources to generate the energy themselves.

Harken back to Maine for a moment where citizens across the state are fighting an Avangrid subsidiary plans to build transmission lines over protected Maine forest and imagine the same battles here in NM, as Avangrid seeks to build out transmission lines to Arizona and California, with lines marring centuries old landscapes and crossing sacred indigenous lands. It was only in 2014 that we were able to achieve protection for the Organ Mountains and they could well be in the path of Avangrid’s plans for transmission lines to Mexico. Do you trust the same folks to manage this process as those being fought tooth and nail in Maine? Assuming not, is there an alternative?

The alternative is clear. SB 112 is creating an Sustainable Economy Task Force to explore ways to diversify our economy and free us from reliance upon gas and oil revenues. The same economics that have driven Avangrid to seek to purchase PNM and exploit NM’s immense renewable energy transmission potential could drive the state to expand state investments in wind and solar generation and build its own transmission lines, meeting our own energy needs and exporting energy to states in need of that energy…..with profit accruing to the state, not a privately held mega corporation from Spain who would simply extract that profit and distribute it to their shareholders. How is that a good deal for New Mexico?

NEE’s piece below covers other compelling reasons to oppose this acquisition. Once you’ve read that though, I highly recommend you examine the video that follows. It will make very clear exactly who Avangrid is, their motivations, and the way they like to operate. If you think PNM is hard to regulate, just wait til Avangrid rides into town with big promises that will ultimately translate into higher rates and massive profits for their share holders.

Not many understood the full import of the Energy Transition Act and still fewer appreciate what is behind Avangrid’s proposed purchase of PNM. So please review this post and then share it with friends. The PRC decides on whether or not to approve the merger. We need to let them know what is behind this. New Energy Economy lays it out very clearly. Take it away NEE.

We Are At a Crossroad
Energy Democracy and Local Control or Corporate Control, Rate Increases & Reliance on a Distant Mega Corp. NEE’S View

New Mexico stands at a crossroads. Not only between fossil fuels and renewable energy, but also between energy monopoly on steroids and energy democracy. The proposed merger agreement between PNM and Avangrid/Iberdrola, pending now before the PRC, is part of a larger energy transition that is happening across the globe. The PRC’s decision in this case will determine not only whether ordinary New Mexicans will pay hundreds of millions to bail out PNM for their past imprudent climate atrocities, but whether our energy future will be determined locally for the benefit of New Mexicans or will instead be subsumed within an international monopoly conglomerate pursuing global energy dominance and access to the California and Mexico energy markets.  (As the NYT has said “they are the “Exxon of renewables.” How does that sit with you?)

A straight line can be drawn from the Four Corners imprudence finding in 2017 to the Energy Transition Act in 2019 to the PNM Avangrid Merger case which is before the commission now. In 2013 and 2014 PNM extended the life of the Four Corners Power Plant by investing approximately a billion dollars of OUR money in the plant without any contemporaneous financial analysis. In 2017, in Case No. 16-00276-UT, we challenged that decision, and Hearing Examiners found that PNM invested in and extended the life of the FCPP without a current financial analysis. The investment was found to be “imprudent” (an imprudence finding means that costs cannot be included in rates), but after lobbying by PNM, PRC Commissioners voted to defer the issue of prudence until PNM’s next rate case, a rate case that has yet to be filed. Four years later we are still paying for high-cost polluting coal at FCPP, and the proposed PNM Avangrid merger would ensure we continue paying for the next 25 years, even as the coal plant continues to operate.

Right after that imprudence finding PNM began working with legislators on the Energy Transition Act. Celebrated for its Renewable Portfolio Standard (a standard that would have been achieved through market forces alone), the ETA was in fact a Trojan horse, containing language giving PNM a 100% bailout for its investments in San Juan and ALL other fossil fuel plants, regardless of prudence (or other regulatory standards). Our legislature was uniquely generous – in no other state does securitization law give utilities a right to 100% cost recovery for imprudent acts AND elimination of regulatory oversight for plant abandonment costs. Because there is so much money at play in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, utilities across the country are aggressively campaigning to influence energy transition legislation for their benefit. (“When Utility Money Talks,” New York Times, Aug. 2, 2020) The Edison Electric Institute, a trade association for electric utilities, worked for many years to hinder the development of solar and wind power, but when market forces finally made that impossible they switched tactics, instead seeking ways to ensure that utilities are bailed out for their investments in coal and nuclear power. Nobody proposed that AT&T should be compensated for their investment in land lines when cell phones became dominant, and nobody owes these for-profit utility companies anything for their shortsighted fossil fuel climate-altering investments.

Most of you probably know that New Energy Economy opposed the Energy Transition Act, and that we proposed amendments in the most recent legislative session to prevent a bailout for the Four CornerCPower Plant and nuclear plants yet to be abandoned. Our amendments were tabled in the Senate Conservation committee by both Republican and Democratic legislators, and our Local Choice Energy Act to end the antiquated monopoly utility model in New Mexico met the same fate in Senate Tax, Business and Transportation. New Mexico legislators proved once again that they are beholden to PNM and the oil and gas industry, their largest campaign contributors. (“The New Mexico Oil and Gas Industry and Its Allies: Oceans of Oil, Oceans of Influence,” Common Cause New Mexico and New Mexico Ethics Watch, March 2020), , pp. 8, 13, 26.

PNM was clearly not worried. Even before the legislative session began, they had filed a merger agreement with Avangrid, a subsidiary of the Spanish company Iberdrrola. Those talks began as soon as the ETA was proposed, and when it was passed through the legislaturere, Avangrid knew it was an opportunity to offerto build out NM’sutility infrastructureat rate pyers expens and then to begin eportinng our wind and solar accruing immense profit, profit that coul be th state’s. . All of iPNM’suneconomic baggageand soon to be stranded fossil fuel investments could be securitized and passed off to ratepayers. In fact, PNM has already filed for abandonment and full cost recovery for both Four Corners

9FCPP)and the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant, but it is important to note here that neither abandonment filing means the plants will actually close. Instead, PNM is simply paying another company to take the Four Corners coal off its hands and selling its shares in Palo Verde nuclear at a significant loss. If approved, the climate altering emissions and toxic waste streams from both plants will continue for years to come, while New Mexican rate-payers pay for PNM’s losses on the sales,,allowing Avangrid to obtain an unencumbered PNM.

The timing of those abandonment filings was also not a coincidence. In fact, the PNM Avangrid merger agreement stipulates that PNM must abandon and securitize its investments in FCPP prior to Dec 31st, 2024, and the only buyer who was willing to accept PNM’s money in order to take the plant off their hands was NTEC, the owner of the coal mine that supplies the plant. They agreed to take the plant with the requirement that PNM ensure the plant cannot close prior to 2027, effectively forcing the plant to remain open longer than projected. Avangrid’s policy precludes ownership of coal – it interferes with their shiny renewable reputation (“ESG”) – but clearly they have no problem with offloading dirty coal to other companies even if that means it will mean more climate polluting emissions. This too is a pattern being followed by large energy companies around the world. (“Companies Go Green but the Planet Doesn’t Always Win,” Politico, 3/30/2021). New Energy Economy filed a Motion to Dismiss the so called “abandonment” application, which we won in part (the Commission ordered PNM to re-file their application) and we will be renewing our Motion based on these very issues, prominently including that it can’t be in the public interest for PNM to sell its coal shares and prolong the burning of coal.

We now find ourselves grateful to stand in solidarity with more than half a dozen intervenors who oppose the PNM Avangrid merger as written. In testimony for the Sierra Club, Jeremy Fisher writes “condition 6.19 of the proposed merger between the Company and Avangrid…requires PNM to enter into “definitive agreements” to exit from the Four Corners Power Plant… on specific terms by no later than December 31, 2024. This clause of the merger agreement is a driving factor in PNM’s transfer of its interest in Four Corners to the Navajo Transitional Energy Company (“NTEC”) — a transfer that is being done in a way that is antithetical to the climate policies and goals of the State of New Mexico.” (pg 6.) In testimony for the New Mexico Attorney General ’s office, Andrea Crane writes “PNM should agree to assume all costs of abandonment of its interest in the Four Corners Power Plant (“FCPP”) and withdraw its filing for the abandonment of the FCPP under the Energy Transition Act (“ETA”) that sets forth an estimated $300 million cost of abandonment.” (pg 7.)

Though several parties have already settled in exchange for various concessions, New Energy Economy and many others continue to hold out for justice. The PRC must decide if any utility merger serves the public interest. Some of the many reasons we think only benefits the shareholders and does not New Mexico, New Mexicans and ratepayers it that the merger:

1. Prolongs the operation of the FCPP and thus increases carbon emissions.
2. Requires ratepayers be saddled with $300M in FCPP recovery costs that were previously determined to be imprudent, negating any potential benefits from rate credits.
3. Offers shareholders $700M+ in premiums and executives $36M in bonus compensation while residential ratepayers receive 45 dollars each on average. PNM is selling its monopoly profit at obscene benefit to their executives and shareholders to a global energy giant, and offering those ratepayers almost nothing in return.
4. Does not include a rate freeze, required by NM law and necessary to quantify the benefits of any rate credits included in the merger agreement.
5. Includes a paltry $20M in economic development funds, an amount that should be closer to $100M, per legal precedent.
6. Does not include enough reparations to the communities impacted by decades of air, water and land pollution from its coal plants, nor provide assurances for sufficient land remediation, and immediate cleanup of abandoned coal facilities.

A merger with Avangrid is the exact opposite of Energy Democracy. Avangrid/Iberdrola want to create NM energy colonization 2.0. We want the PEOPLE to own their own power! In Maine, an Avangrid owned subsidiary, Central Maine Power (CMP), has consistently received the lowest customer satisfaction rates in the country. A group called “Our Power” is proposing legislation to replace the for-profit utility with a lower cost, reliable and responsive ratepayer-owned nonprofit utility company so that “CMP and Versant will no longer be able to give unfair preference to their affiliates, delay connections to new renewable energy projects, or work to block cheaper, cleaner, more efficient energy choices such as solar and efficiency.” (ourpowermaine.org)

They have no option but to fight to replace Avangrid, but we still do. Do we want to double down on energy monopoly? Or do we want to get to a place where New Mexicans produce their own clean energy, benefit from that energy production and control their energy choices? We are at the crossroads. If we don’t choose the right path now, Avangrid will bulldoze the places we love to build their energy empire and use their vast financial resources to ensure we have even less control over our energy future.

Thank you, Mariel. Well done. Retake and NEE will keep you posted as the PRC hearing nears and we will provide ways in which you can raise your voice on this important issue.

Citizens for Fair Rates and the Environment has created a petition to express opposition to this merger. I’d encourage you to sign the petition and share it with others. Click here.

Part II on PNM and Avangrid:
PRC Hearing Officer Does His Job; NM AG Fails to Do So

We’ve been reporting on this proposed merger and the deeper we dig, the uglier it gets. If you missed our earlier report outlining Avangrid’s egregious corporate behavior in Maine and Avangrid’s likely motivation for overpaying by a billion dollars to acquire PNM, click here. That post also included a most revealing video describing Avangrid’s behavior in Maine.

There are a number of reasons that Retake is so concerned about this proposed acquisition:

1. It represents all that is extractive and exploitive about our capitalist economic system, with a foreign mega corporation smelling profit and sensing a politically and regulatorily favorable environment. Us, NM, the Land of Enchantment.
2. There is the appearance of unethical manipulation of the media and potentially of Democratic political leadership. PNM has a track record of flooding campaign coffers in NM to buy influence and using dark money to flood our mail boxes and TVs with misleading information. Avangrid has taken this to a new level in Maine and we are beginning to see signs of misleading ads every evening during the local news. As reported by Natural Resources Council of Maine, in its CMP & Hydro-Quebec Have Spent Record-breaking $16.78M on Campaign for the CMP Corridor, Avangrid has flooded Maine with campaign donations and media buys totaling over $19 million in six months to purchase approval of their blatantly profit-driven effort to circumvent public sentiment and coerce agreement to run transmission lines through protected Maine forests.
3. The entire chessboard of Spanish corporate maneuvers to extract profit from the poorest state in the nation is such a clear manifestation of capitalist greed that we need to call it out for what it is. How will we (ratepayers and our environment) possibly benefit from agreeing to this transfer of a PNM monopoly to an even less responsive corporate character? It is tiresome to be constantly fighting the good fight, for our future and our planet and every time face piles of money misrepresenting corporate plans and seducing politicians and influencers.
4. It points to the critical need for NM and the nation to consider public ownership and operation of key industries like utilities, energy, internet, broadband, banking and health. These are key industries and should be operated for the public good, not for private profit. A key focus of Rethink research is focused upon ways in which NM and the US can reverse privatization by elevating the role of government and ensuring that key public functions are driven by the public good, not by corporate profit motives.

Wenesday, The ABQ Journal thought Avangrid’s proposed acquisition of PNM was so important, they placed it on the front page. The report notes numerous problems with the failure of Avangrid subsidiaries in New York, Connecticut, and Maine to comply with regulatory oversight, adequately prepare for emergency preparations, and grossly fail to meet customer needs.

We’ve reported on how Central Maine Power, one of Avangrid’s subsidiaries, is spending millions to mislead Maine voters about their plan to run transmission lines through the pristine Maine mountains. But, yesterday, The Journal reported that JD Powers has published an annual study for more than two decades on business customer satisfaction for nearly 90 utilities across the U.S. CMP has received the lowest ranking in the nation for three years in a row. In Connecticut, Avangrid’s performance is even worse. The Journal reported that Ashley Schannauer, the PNM Hearing Examiner, noted a myriad of indicators of poor performance and duplicitous dealings with regulatory commissions. From The ABQ Journal: “PNM Buyer’s Track Record Snarls Merger“

“Schannauer cited a May 6 decision by Connecticut regulators to fine Avangrid’a electric subsidiary, United Illuminating Co., $2.1 million for failing to adequately prepare for and respond to Hurricane Isaias, which left hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power for da\s last August. Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (UI) also ordered a $1.3 million reduction in profit allowances for UI, which serves 340,000 local electric customers, plus a management audit of the utility by independent Àrms, according to local news reports. After reading about the fines on UI, Schannauer said, he researched U.S. Securities Exchange Commission Filings and found a ´hostµ of other regulatory actions against three other Avangrid utilities in Maine and New York totaling about $23 million in penalties and disallowances for cost recovery imposed over the past year and a half. ´That’s $25 million in penalties and disallowances for poor service,’ Schannauer said. ´All of this is news to me.’ “

The ABQ Journal: “PNM Buyer’s Track Record Snarls Merger”

If that isn’t enough, Retake dug a bit deeper and found that in 2017 Avangrid admitted to six violations of transmission operations reliability standards at three of its subsidiaries. The violations posed a moderate risk to the reliability of the power system, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who then levied a $450,000 find on Avangrid subsidiaries Central Maine Power, New York State Electric and Gas, and Rochester Gas and Electric. Not only did they fail to meet transmission standards, they also failed to immediately report unplanned outages to regulators, leaving the grid vulnerable to instability, uncontrolled separation or cascading outages.

CMP, NYSEG and RG&E also violated a requirement to conduct a real-time assessment of their transmission facilities at least every 30 minutes, failing to request that their respective regional grid operator perform the assessment on their behalf while their capabilities were down, the notice said. This increased the risk that the utilities and their grid operators would have been unprepared to effectively8 manage grid reliability. No wonder Avangrid enjoys such low customer satisfaction, they consistently place profit over customer service and grid reliability the two things that are a core expectation in awarding a monopoly to a private utility operator. Yet, Avangrid not only fails on both of these expectations, they do their best to hide their failures and cosmeticize with false advertising their goals. The duplicity offered in Avangrid’s application and its failure to even reveal more truthfully their track record to the PRC led Ashley to state:

” ‘The joint applicants· failure to disclose this information to the commission in this proceeding is troubling and is also relevant to the credibility of their witnesses· testimony and transparency by which Avangrid and PNM would conduct their business in New Mexico if the merger is approved,’ Schannauer wrote in the order.”

The ABQ Journal: “PNM Buyer’s Track Record Snarls Merger”

In this context, it is utterly inconceivable that the NM Attorney General and the Coalition for Clean and Affordable Environment (CCAE) have filed briefs supporting Avangrid’s acquisition of PNM. How does our State’s top enforcer of consumer protection sign off on the acquisition of PNM and the installation of a distant megacorporation with such a track record of failure in consumer protection?

You have to wonder what private conversations were had to have teased out the AG’s approval, given the strident concerns raised by the PRC Hearing Examiner and deeply flawed track record in Connecticut, New York and Maine. If past performance is the best predictor of future performance, you’d have thought that the AG would have sought far stronger and binding assurances and commitments from Avangrd. We expect mega corporations to behave like mega corporations and dissemble, cheat and connive for more and more profit. But you also expect your AG to protect you from such avarice, not align with it.

And how could CCAE continue to continue to claim that they use strategic advocacy, scientific analysis, and grassroots organizing to advance clean energy policy and programs” while aligning supporting this acquisition. The CCAE has an interesting membership that includes most grasstops environmental groups in NM, including the Sierra Club, Conservation Voters New Mexico, and 350NM? How can can these grasstop orgs so aggregiously ignore the rights of ratepayers? How can 350NM continue to bear the mantle of Bill McKibben while supporting Avangrid? Interesting.

Stay tuned. As PRC hearing dates are set and dates for public comment published we will provide info on how best to weigh in. But in the meantime, maybe it is time to write to and call the Attorney General and ask why he has failed to stand up for NM consumers.

• Santa Fe AG Office Phone: (505) 490-4060
• ABQ AG Office Phone: (505) 717-3500
• Email for Attorney General Hector Balderas: hbalderas@nmag.gov

Part III: Avangrid-PNM Merger: Another View

Today, we feature a guest post from Ron Flax-Davidson, a board member of Positive Solar and an expert on renewable energy generation and distribution. Retake Our Democracy has already posted twice, commenting on this merger and done a show on our findings. To make it easier for you to catch up, we created a page with both posts (sans events and other info).

Part III: Avangrid-PNM: Guest Post from Ron Flax Davidson

Iberdrola, a Spanish company with over $136 Billion in assets, has proposed that its subsidiary (Avangrid) acquire 100% of the shares of Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM). The proposal requires approval from the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) before taking effect.

On April 30, 2021 I submitted Public Comment to the PRC asking the PRC to require, as a condition of merger, that Iberdrola/Avangrid agree to follow current rules supporting customers with roof-top solar and electric vehicle charging stations.

To date, the distributed energy resource (DER) industry, including roof-top solar and electric vehicle charging stations, has built approximately 200 MW of solar generation facilities on over 25,000 customer premises in New Mexico, providing additional low-cost, clean, solar electric power directly to customers and to the grid, thus avoiding the cost of building a similar amount of large-scale facilities, far from customer load, and also thereby reducing electric transmission requirements.

The DER industry in New Mexico currently provides direct employment for approximately 2,000 New Mexican families and generates nearly $100 million per year in local revenues. A recent study indicates this is 30x the employment obtained from large, utility-scale, renewable facilities and, if implemented throughout the United States, would provide nearly $500 billion in savings to customers. The DER industry is poised to continue its growth, based primarily on New Mexico law and regulation that require utilities to provide customers with “net-metering” (customers with roof-top solar panels may reduce their cost of electricity by the amount of electricity generated at their premises).

However, Avangrid’s subsidiary, Central Maine Power, previously led a roll-back of solar “net metering” requirements that would have decimated the roof-top solar industry in Maine. (In 2019, a newly elected Governor and state legislature in Maine reversed this attack on the roof-top solar industry.)

While Iberdrola/Avangrid is the owner of a considerable capacity of renewable energy assets (primarily wind and solar generating facilities), these are overwhelmingly large, utility-scale facilities, far from customer load, that require long and expensive transmission facilities (also owned by Iberdrola/Avangrid) to transport this electricity.

Iberdrola/Avangrid has indicated that after acquisition of PNM it plans to build additional large-scale renewable energy generating facilities (wind and solar) in New Mexico and increased transmission lines to bring this electricity from its generating facilities to customer loads, including outside New Mexico. 

While additional renewable energy facilities are needed in New Mexico, to replace old, expensive, and highly polluting coal and nuclear facilities, New Mexico law and regulations require that utilities, like PNM, purchase electricity from generators based on arms-length criteria, including reliability and cost to customers, and not just because the generator is owned by an affiliated party.

The PRC must not allow Avangrid and PNM to unfairly restrict the local, distributed energy resource (DER) industry in New Mexico, as was done in Maine. The Iberdrola/Avangrid proposal for take-over of PNM must include protections for the local DER industry, including the protection and expansion of customer “net-metering” benefits, and allowing interconnection of solar roof-top facilities and electric vehicle charging stations without prohibitive cost.

Key provisions we recommend be required and maintained by Iberdrola/Avangrid until the earlier of (i) ten years after merger, or (ii) the total capacity of Qualified Distributed Energy Resources (defined as solar generation facilities of up to 1MW size (excluding battery storage) on customer premises) total 25% of utility total peak electric demand, should include:

1. Maintenance of current net-metering provisions for customers and third-party owners of solar generation facilities of Qualified Distributed Energy Resources that provide for the reduction of electricity purchases from the utility by the customer equal to the amount of electricity generated by Qualified Distributed Energy Resources on customer premises.
2. Maintenance of current utility electric charges specific to customers with Qualified Distributed Energy Resources without increase (except changes to interconnection costs, as proposed below).
3. Approval of interconnection without charge other than reasonable review cost for customers and third-party owners of Qualified Distributed Energy Resources.  (Interconnection Customer will not be charged for cost of upgrading utility equipment (including, without limitation, transformers and feeder lines) to accommodate installation of Qualified Distributed Energy Resources.)

If you support the continued expansion of the local distributed energy resource (DER) industry, including roof-top solar and electric vehicle charging stations, please contact your PRC Commissioner, State Representatives and the Governor and ask them to require that Avangrid/PNM protect the DER industry, as indicated above.

Please contact your Commissioner at the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) and ask them to save net metering and roof-top solar!

District 1: Cynthia Hall (Cynthia.Hall@state.nm.us)

District 2: Jeff Byrd (Jeff.Byrd@state.nm.us)

District 3: Joseph Maestas (joseph.maestas@state.nm.us)

District 4: Teresa Becenti-Aguilar (T.Becenti@state.nm.us)

District 5: Stephen Fischmann (stephen.fischmann@state.nm.us)

If you don’t know your Commissioner you can send to all or locate your Commissioner via the map at: New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (state.nm.us).

Please contact Governor Lujan Grisham and ask her to save Net Metering and Roof-Top Solar! Click on link below: Contact the Governor | Office of the Governor – Michelle Lujan Grisham (state.nm.us)

Ron Flax-Davidson is on the Board of Directors of Positive Energy Solar, Inc., a provider of distributed energy resources (DER), including roof-top solar, an owner of an electric vehicle, and a resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico.