Celebrating a vision for our future
El Paso Electric is region’s only 100% coal-free utility
El Paso Electric (EPE) is a proud regional utility that serves more than 400,000 customers in southern New Mexico and west Texas.
We provide generation, transmission and distribution services to a 10,000-square-mile area, a territory the size of New Jersey, and we are committed to continuing a proud tradition of providing clean, safe, reliable and affordable electricity, and to finding ways to be leaders in innovative technologies that will better our region.
It was with this goal in mind that El Paso Electric is proud that we are now officially the only electric utility in the region to be 100 percent coal-free.
This milestone celebrates a vision for a cleaner energy future for our company and for our community.
Coal-free generation allows EPE to avoid 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide from our annual emissions and, due to our investment in largescale solar generation, EPE will have eliminated another billion pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.
This is equivalent to taking 190,000 cars off the road.
Our world is increasingly turning its attention to the environmental factors that affect entire communities, and it will continue to be an important issue as we think about our future and that of our children.
In recent years, coal has become an embattled resource, with many environmental groups and even the federal government working together to severely limit coal in electric power generation. As more utilities try to do their part in reducing emissions, EPE believes that the elimination of coal generation will play an important part in this discussion.
The decision to become a company without coal-fired generation was also a financial one; after EPE underwent an economic impact analysis, we decided that we would not be extending our ownership of Four Corners and our portion was sold to Arizona Public Service, based in Phoenix, Ariz., as of July 6.
EPE has a firm commitment toward providing clean energy that is also cost-effective and, in considering the operation of Four Corners, we began to see how newer technologies would be more economically beneficial. This sound financial decision will serve to keep rates down for our customers well into the future.
EPE has always looked for good environmental and financial options that allow us to continue providing clean and reliable energy. This is why we have doubled our utility-scale solar generation over the past few years, bringing forth a commitment to renewable energy to power our community.
More than 90 percent of our solar energy comes from solar facilities in New Mexico, located in Santa Teresa, Chaparral, Las Cruces and Hatch.
EPE has led the nation in buying low-cost solar energy for all our customers and has led the state by constructing the largest solar facility in New Mexico, at 50 megawatts.
Along with an increase in renewable energy production, EPE invested in a fleet of natural gas-fired local generating plants with quick start and cycling capabilities.
These new plants reach full generating capacity within 10 minutes from a cold start and have replaced less efficient generation, which took up to seven hours to be fully functioning.
During monsoon weather, cloudy days and, of course, at night, solar energy is not available and this is when our new fleet is ready to meet the demand needed by our customers.
Additionally, we are excited to announce that, in 2017, EPE will be operating its first Community Solar Program in Texas and we hope that, with the success of our business model, a program can be introduced to New Mexico customers soon.
In our 115th year of service to our region, we are excited about the future of our community. EPE looks forward to many more years of clean, reliable, safe and affordable service, free of coalpowered generation.