Merger won’t serve consumer interests
Arural electric cooperative headquartered in Anadarko, Okla., provides electric service to a large region of southeastern New Mexico, including the energy-intensive oil fields there.
The cooperative serves a population about half that of Public Service Company of New Mexico, but the electric peak is similar due to air conditioning doubling the typical home and business load. By 2023, this utility will have 89 percent of its summer peak load capable of being served by renewable energy contracts. Those contracts will meet all of the utility’s energy needs in five months of the year. Having been hired to review the company’s energy fees to purchasers, I can say that PNM has generation costs about 20 percent higher than the co-op.
I note this because the editorial supporting the Avangrid-PNM merger (“Merger is fastest path to green energy for New Mexico,” Our View, Sept. 5) clearly states that PNM managers think they can’t buy renewable energy effectively. The lead sentence in the second paragraph, “The company is too small to compete,” is off base. PNM is a retail utility. It does not compete. It can
Utilities always will come back with some excuse about how they were too inept to forecast a problem such as a collapsing power plant cooling tower. Then, inevitably, they are bailed out by a rate change, an Energy Transition Act or a buyout.
have subsidiaries that compete, but it does not. Further, any attempt to introduce some sort of retail competition for PNM customers is stomped upon by PNM, its lobbyists and the governors of this state.
I appreciate the note of support for New Energy Economy in the editorial, though. In my 10 years in New Mexico, I’ve seen PNM or Avangrid accept changes in positions that have saved customers $50 million because of NEE, the chief opponent to a proposed merger before the Public Regulation Commission.
The ending of the editorial is to “Approve the merger. Make sure Avangrid keeps its promises.” That never happens. Utilities in Texas said they had a reliable grid.
They didn’t. Regulators in Texas said they wouldn’t allow gouging on power prices. They did. Utilities always will come back with some excuse about how they were too inept to forecast a problem such as a collapsing power plant cooling tower. Then, inevitably, they are bailed out by a rate change, an Energy Transition Act or a buyout.
My only regret is that regulators will approve this mess and dump millions of dollars into the hands of the most hapless utility management I’ve seen in 40 years.