Sen. Linda Lopez Senate District 11 | Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter
Late on February 21, Public Regulation Commission (PRC) hearing examiners issued recommended decisions supporting PNM's exit from its ownership and operation of the San Juan Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant. The recommendations also support bond sales to recover the remaining debt in the plant, along with recovery funds for workers and the surrounding Four Corners community.
These recommended decisions will now be reviewed by NMPRC commissioners for a final decision. Parties that disagree with the hearing examiners’ recommendations will have an opportunity to voice their concerns before this final decision is made. Recommendations are expected within 4-6 weeks regarding what mix of resources should replace the coal power.
In response to these recommendations, several intervening parties issued statements. The recommendation confirmed that low-rate bonds authorized by the Energy Transition Act will provide savings to PNM customers:
“The cost savings from abandoning San Juan Units 1 and 4 are large enough to offset the added costs of the (Energy Transition Charges) and PNM’s proposed portfolio of replacement resources. Thus, the immediate impact of the securitization and abandonment should be a net savings in customers’ monthly bills. PNM estimates the savings for an average residential customer using 600 kWh per month and paying the $1.90 per month ETC should approximate $6.87 per month on their current monthly bill of $73.25. Even the residential customer using 1,000 kWh per month and paying the higher $4.97 per month ETC should see a savings of $9.65 per month on their current monthly bill of $129.03 per month.”
The only party recommending against allowing PNM to exit San Juan was PRC staff, who claimed that PNM hadn’t sufficiently considered retrofitting San Juan for carbon capture technology, which is currently operational at only one smaller power plant in the U.S. However, hearing examiners noted that carbon capture technology is speculative and costly: “The modeling conducted by PNM also shows that abandonment will cost substantially less than PNM’s continued operation of the plant retrofitted with carbon capture technology, and no party has presented contrary evidence.”
