About the Lead Author

David Van Winkle was an executive with Texas Instruments for 30 years, leading large business units and analyzing complex business and technical challenges. For the past eight years, Van Winkle has reviewed and analyzed multiple renewable resource plans of New Mexico utilities and has led the development of strategies for various New Mexican organizations. Van Winkle has considerable experience in analyzing multifaceted cost and financial issues and providing solutions for business problems. He has created operational system models for multiple utilities that utilize multiple years of customer energy usage data (8760 hourly data) and actual resource output, including, among other things, actual solar hourly output. These system models have provided significant insight into utility system generation issues in meeting changing customer loads. In addition, through extensive discussion and participation in New Mexico electric utility resource issues over the years, Van Winkle has developed technical knowledge about resource options for meeting utility loads. In these discussions, Van Winkle has provided innovative solutions that solved complex problems, such as solving the EPA puzzle in the PNM San Juan retirement challenge. Van Winkle has testified on numerous occasions before the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission as a financial and energy expert. In NM PRC Case No. 16-00105-UT, PNM filed a case before the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission, seeking a $100 million gas pipeline and plant. No party opposed the case except New Energy Economy; after Van Winkle filed expert testimony claiming that PNM’s own load forecasting data proved that the gas plant was unnecessary, PNM withdrew its case.

Van Winkle is the Chair of the Board of Directors for New Energy Economy.