Wind farm to favor NM firms
Xcel to dedicate portion of construction costs to local businesses
Xcel Energy’s plans for a massive wind farm in eastern New Mexico will bring at least $57 million in local spending on New Mexico contractors, vendors and labor.
That’s according to a new agreement announced Thursday by the company, the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, the Coalition for Clean Affordable Energy and the environmental group Western Resource Advocates.
Those parties negotiated an accord committing Xcel subsidiary Southwest Public Service Co. to spend at least 30 percent of all construction costs on its planned Sagamore Wind Project in Roosevelt County on New Mexico-based companies and employees. SPS will pay for an independent monitor to help find qualified local businesses and labor and to assure the utility meets the 30 percent spending goal, said Attorney General Hector Balderas in a news conference Thursday with the other parties.
“This investment means that real dollars will go to New Mexico businesses, and that New Mexicans will have real opportunities for prosperity as we work to bring clean, affordable energy to our state,” said Attorney General Hector Balderas.
The 522-megawatt wind farm, expected to come online in 2020, will be by far the state’s largest wind generation facility. Sagamore is part of a massive, $1.6 billion regional wind project that also includes construction of a 478 MW facility in West Texas and purchase of 230 MW of wind generation from a nearby facility owned by NextEra Energy. Taken together, those wind farms will provide enough electricity to power about 440,000 average homes annually.
The Sagamore project is still pending approval by the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. But all groups participating in PRC hearings on the project have already signed a settlement agreement, announced early this week, to support SPS’s plans.
That settlement guarantees substantial customer benefits from the project, which SPS says will save roughly $2.8 billion for some 385,000 consumers in New Mexico and West Texas over 30 years by providing cheaper electricity than could otherwise be obtained from coal or natural gas.
“This project will bring in some of the least-cost wind services for customers,” said David Hudson, Xcel president for New Mexico and Texas. “It’s cheaper than coal, with no environmental emissions nor use of ground water.”