New Mexico’s Community Solar Program
Originally published on ILSR.org.
Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the Energy Transition Act (SB 489) in 2019, which introduced the idea of a community solar program, and also mandated that New Mexico move to 50% renewable energy by 2030. However, New Mexico’s community solar program was truly born in 2021, when the Community Solar Act (SB 84) established New Mexico’s official program.
After a three-hour filibuster, the Community Solar Act (SB 84) passed on April 5, 2021. The act authorized community solar projects in the state and requires that 30 percent of each community solar facility serves low-income households. The first three years of the program are capped at 200 megawatts of total generating capacity. This total does not include native community solar projects or rural electric distribution cooperatives. The bill defines “native community solar projects’ ‘ as facilities located on native land that is owned or operated by “an Indian nation, tribe, or pueblo or a tribal entity or in partnership with a third-party entity.” This addresses ILSR’s third principle: that any community solar policy must be additive, rather than detract from any existing renewable energy policy. Subscriptions can supply up to 100% of subscribers’ average annual electricity consumption.
Watch the top state community solar programs progress in our National Community Solar Programs Tracker and click here to find more state program pages.
New Mexico is the second sunniest state in the United States, with an average of 300 days per year of sunshine. This climate makes the state a prime candidate for solar power. Early estimates suggest that New Mexico’s community solar program should be up and running by Spring 2022. The Community Solar Act requires that the Public Regulation Commission finalize the rules process by April 1, 2022.
In addition to investor-owned utilities, third parties can own community solar facilities ( fulfilling the Institute for Local Self Reliance’s second principle of successful community renewable energy, flexibility). The system is regulated through renewable energy certificates. In the case of community solar facilities, these certificates are actually owned by the electric utility to which the facility is interconnected. These certificates may be traded or sold, and serve as proof of compliance with New Mexico’s renewable portfolio standard. The community solar program will help to fulfill New Mexico’s requirement that investor-owned utilities are carbon-free by 2045 and 2050, respectively.
Tangible Benefits
A study by the University of New Mexico’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research predicts that the community solar project will be a massive boost to New Mexico’s economy. For a small state, the numbers are staggering: 3,760 jobs over the next five years, $517 million in economic benefits, $147 million in labor income, and $2.9 million yearly in tax revenue. Community Solar also offers excellent benefits to small and medium sized landowners, like local farms, many of whom do not possess the amount of property necessary to host a full-scale solar plant. Additionally, projects can partner with local farms and offer landowners revenue for leasing space to solar gardens.
In addition to the boons to New Mexico’s economy as a whole, individual subscribers will receive meaningful benefits. Utilities must provide credits to subscribers for at least twenty-five years after interconnection. The credit rate is proportional to the kilowatt-hour production of their share of the facility, and is “derived from the qualifying utility’s aggregate retail rate on a per customer-class basis”. That amount is then credited to the subscriber’s bill from the provider. If a subscriber uses less than their allotted credit’s worth of electricity in a given month, the surplus amount is applied to their next month.
The program has yet to start, but based on these factors and predictions, New Mexico’s plan passes the Institute for Local Self Reliance’s first principle for successful community renewable energy, tangible benefits.
Promoting Indigenous Power
Tribal lands cover 10% of New Mexico, the third highest of any state. There are already multiple small-scale tribal owned solar facilities, including a 115 KW system for the Santo Domingo Tribe. Native community solar gardens are exempted from the overall cap and the individual 100% of average annual consumption limits. The Act states further that “nothing in the Community Solar Act shall preclude an Indian nation, tribe, or pueblo from using financial mechanisms other than subscription models, including virtual and aggregate net-metering, for native community solar projects.
Access To All
Beyond the Indigenous-focused pieces, the program contains further components designed to ensure access for a wide variety of subscribers, fulfilling ILSR’s fourth principle. All subscriber material must be printed in English, Spanish, and, if applicable, native or Indigenous languages. New Mexico’s Public Regulation Commission vows to seek input from a variety of stakeholders, which the Act notes includes “low-income stakeholders … disproportionately impacted communities … (and) Indian nations, tribes, and pueblos.” The program’s 30 percent capacity carveout for low-income subscribers compares favorably with other programs.
For more on solar in New Mexico, check out these ILSR resources:
Learn more about community solar in one of these ILSR reports:
For podcasts, videos, and more, see ILSR’s community renewable energy archive.
This article was originally posted at ilsr.org. For timely updates, follow John Farrell on Twitter or get the Energy Democracy weekly update.
Featured photo credit: formulanone via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Environment
Siemens Energy shares jump 13% after guidance raise and leadership change at embattled wind turbine unit
Siemens Energy shares soared as much as 13% on Wednesday after the German renewables firm raised its forecast for the year and announced that the CEO of its troubled wind turbine unit will be replaced amid “comprehensive restructuring measures.”
It said in a statement that Jochen Eickholt at Siemens Gamesa informed the board that he will step down from his position as CEO by mutual agreement on July 31, and be succeeded by Vinod Philip.
“In a very difficult situation at Siemens Gamesa, Jochen laid the central foundations for the urgently needed reorganization and new start within Siemens Energy. It is only fair to emphasize that the causes of the quality problems did not fall under his tenure as CEO,” said Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch in a statement.
It said that Gamesa had initiated comprehensive restructuring measures and “steps for long-term strategic development” in order to boost operating margins.
Strong demand for power grid equipment amid the company’s “success” in stabilizing the wind business led Siemens on Wednesday to raise its forecast for the year.
Power-generating Siemens 2.37 megawatt (MW) wind turbines are seen at the Ocotillo Wind Energy Facility California, May 29, 2020.
Bing Guan | Reuters
For the full year, the company now expects a comparable revenue growth between 10% and 12% and a profit margin before special items between negative 1% and positive 1%. It previously forecast comparable revenue growth between 3% and 7% and a profit margin before special items between negative 2% and positive 1%.
Shares of Siemens Energy traded 11.3% higher at around 9:45 a.m. London time.
Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Wednesday, CEO Bruch said Siemens Energy had enjoyed a “good quarter,” citing “very positive” order momentum in energy. However, he warned the company still needed to work through some quality issues.
“We are tackling the things in wind. We have been working over the last two years on a lot of things. Jochen launched a lot of the right activities in terms of this operational turnaround. We knew it was going to take years for us to really get it back on track,” Bruch said.
“Going forward, we are going to be active in onshore and offshore. We are going to focus the business on offshore more. We hammer down on the volume product in offshore,” he added.
A tough 2023
Siemens Energy suffered a rough 2023. Problems with manufacturing faults at Gamesa forced the parent company to a 4.6 billion euro ($4.94 billion) loss for the fiscal year. An investigation into quality issues was launched at the wind turbine division.
In June, during a particularly turbulent time for the stock, Siemens Energy scrapped its profit forecast and warned that the costly failures at Gamesa could drag on for years.
The wind industry has expanded rapidly over the past two decades, lowering costs to rival — and sometimes undercut — those of fossil fuels, while boosting efficiency with ever-bigger turbines and reducing reliance on state subsidies. But the issues last year led investors to worry that Gamesa’s problems might be a symptom of a wider problem for the industry.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, Siemens Energy reported a net income of 108 million euros for the last quarter and raised its outlook on “stronger growth and positive cash development.”
— CNBC’s Elliot Smith contributed to this article.
Rivian has released its Q1 2024 results, slightly beating analyst estimates on revenue, which grew sharply year-over-year, but with wider losses than expected and only slight gross margin improvement as it still hopes to turn some quarterly profit by the end of the year.
Electric truck maker Rivian announced its results after the bell today, capping off a quarter that has seen difficulty for some EV makers.
Rivian previously announced that deliveries remained flat between Q4 and Q1 at 13,588 units, but were up 71% since the same quarter last year. Rivian says it achieved 5.1% market share in US EVs in Q1, quite a feat for a company that sells only upmarket vehicles, with the R1S being the best-selling EV over $70k
Q1 tends to be a down quarter for vehicle deliveries, so year-over-year numbers are often used – though with EV makers experiencing rapid growth, quarterly numbers can still be useful.
Analysts estimated that Rivian would bring in $1.175 billion in revenue this quarter, with a loss of $1.15 per share.
Rivian’s actual results, announced today, show that it beat the analysts with $1.204 billion in revenue, but had wider losses than expected at -$1.48 per share. Revenue improved by 82% year-over-year. Rivian ended the quarter with $7,858 billion in cash, down from $9,368 billion at the end of Q4 2023.
Gross margin on vehicles improved slightly, with a loss of $38,784 per vehicle as opposed to $43,372 per vehicle in the previous quarter. The gross margin improvement shows progress, but gross margins are still worse than they were in Q2 and Q3 of last year, at -$32k and -$30k respectively.
However, Rivian has just completed a plant shutdown, which started on April 5, and thus isn’t captured in this quarter’s results. The plant reopened on May 1.
This shutdown was focused on retooling to improve margins, and Rivian says it could increase efficiency by 30%. Rivian sees “significant progress” on cost optimization already, and says that it expects slight positive gross profit in Q4 of this year. We’ll expect to hear more about how the shutdown went on the company’s earnings call at 2PM PDT/5PM EDT today.
It’s also the first earnings call since Rivian’s R2/R3 unveiling event. These are Rivian’s two upcoming vehicles, with which it plans to move downmarket and into higher volume spaces. The R2 will start around $45k in the first half of 2026, while the R3 timeline and cost have not yet been announced.
Along with that event, Rivian announced that it would move production forward for the R2, by building it at its existing plant in Normal, IL, rather than a planned future plant in Georgia. This will bring Normal’s production numbers up to 215k units of total capacity per year across all products.
The main reason for this is to reduce capex in the short-term by $2.25 billion, saving the company cash in a time where fundraising is more difficult than it has been in the past. Rivian also recently cut 1% of jobs in service of these cost savings.
As part of today’s release, Rivian also reduced capex guidance for 2024 to $1.2 billion, down from $1.75 billion. It expects to save money in 2025 and 2026 from the decision to move R2 production to Normal, as well.
Otherwise, Rivian reaffirmed its full year 2024 guidance of 57,000 units production and a $2.7 billion loss, though it expects slight gross profit in Q4.
Rivian (RIVN) closed down 0.77% today, after opening high in response to rumors about a partnership with Apple, but giving back the gains throughout the day. RIVN is currently down 2-3% in aftermarket trading as we await the earnings call, where we expect a question (and likely non-answer) about the Apple rumors.
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Shenzhen, the home of Chinese EV giant BYD, says it’s become the first in China to have more supercharging plugs than gas pumps.
As Electrek reported in April, BYD received direct government subsidies of “at least” $3.7 billion to grow its EV business and undercut the competition with aggressively low pricing. So all those cheap EVs need to be fast-charged, and what better place to expand than BYD’s home city?
In June 2023, Shenzhen unveiled its first fully liquid-cooled supercharging prototype station as part of its “City of Supercharging” plan, in which it set a goal to build as many supercharging stations as gas stations by 2025. And these “superchargers” aren’t just DC fast chargers – they can charge EVs to 80% in just 10 minutes.
Shenzhen had 362 supercharging stations as of April 30, according to the latest data released by the city, but it didn’t say how many gas pumps there are. They’ve been conveniently sited in commercial complexes, bus stops, and industrial parks.
According to data from the Southern Power Grid Shenzhen Power Supply Bureau, Shenzhen’s EV charging volume reached 670 million kilowatt-hours in Q1 2024, an 11% increase year-over-year. So, the city has to plan carefully so as not to overburden the grid as both EVs and superchargers rapidly come online.
The city of 12.5 million people has been an electrification leader for some time; in 2017, it completely electrified its bus fleet with more than 16,000 electric buses, and its taxis became electrified in 2019.
China leads the world in renewables and EV growth, but it’s also the No 1 emitter of harmful greenhouse gases.
Read more: In 2023, investment in clean energy manufacturing shot up 70% from 2022
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