Spanish firm to buy PNM; regulators will be appointed not elected

Utilities are not your friends. 

Avangrid, Inc., a US-based subsidiary of Spanish energy giant Iberdrola with a base in my home town of Elkton, South Dakota plans to spend at least $216 million on a wind farm. That amount of cash would take nearly 17,000 electric subscribers completely off the grid. 

Pending approvals Iberdrola and Avangrid will acquire Public Service of New Mexico (PNM) for about $4.3 billion. The move came just before voters changed the state's regulatory body to an elected five-member board to a three person governor-appointed commission. 

The constitutional amendment will not impact the currently serving commissioners, who will serve out the remainder of their terms and leave office in 2023. The two newly-elected commissioners, incumbent Cynthia Hall and newcomer Joseph Maestas, both Democrats, will serve two year terms ending in 2023. At that point, a nominating committee will provide the governor with a list of qualified nominees. The governor will appoint one for a two-year term, another for a four-year term and the final commissioner will be appointed for a six-year term. After those terms are completed, all of the commissioners will serve six-year terms and no commissioner can serve more than two consecutive terms. The governor cannot appoint more than two members that have the same political affiliation and the nominees must be approved by the state Senate. ['We need professionals rather than politicians.' Voters approve change to an appointed PRC]

Recall that in 2018 Black Hills Energy sold some of its 700 oil and gas wells in New Mexico and the Powder River Basin in Wyoming to help finance a $70 million monolith headquarters in Rapid City. It was built there on the backs of subscribers without choices because out of state Republicans who write the tax law own South Dakota and because the state ended environmental oversight. BHE raised much of its construction cash on Colorado cannabis. 

Microgrid technologies are destined to encourage self-reliance, enhance tribal sovereignty, free communities from electric monopolies and net-metering only gives control back to utilities enabled by moral hazard. Ice storms routinely knock out electric power on American Indian reservations often resulting in lost lives and the inevitable cyber attacks on the US will take down the grid for days, even months causing food shortages and mayhem. 

Public Service Company of New Mexico announced plans Monday to transfer its 13 percent ownership share of the Four Corners Power Plant near Farmington to the Navajo Transitional Energy Company by the end of 2024. [Santa Fe New Mexican]

The average cost of a household photovoltaic system is about $3/watt or around $12,810 before tax credits are factored in. Leaving the grid has never been easier so anyone who can afford to it should do it now and with Trump still in the White House it's never been more urgent.