SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO
VADO — A swath of unused land sitting amid farm fields and irrigation canals may sport a new community solar farm in 2027.
Last week, Doña Ana County commissioners unanimously approved up to $10 million in industrial revenue bonds to finance the project in an agricultural community south of Las Cruces.
Senior project developer Pierre Journel of CVE North America said the planned 5-megawatt facility, called the Lower Rio Grande Solar Project, would generate enough power for approximately 1,000 households. The solar farm will cover 32 acres on a parcel of open land in the unincorporated community of Vado. The New York-based developer is leasing the land for 20 years from the Lower Rio Grande Public Waterworks Authority.
Journel said construction could begin this summer with completion in six-to-12 months, with an interconnection agreement with El Paso Electric already in place. The utility’s service area includes a chunk of southern New Mexico moving southeast to Van Horn, Texas.
The solar project is a partner with El Paso Electric in New Mexico’s community solar program. It will distribute power locally to households that subscribe to the project and receive discounts on their utility bills, a scheme allowing consumers to access renewable energy without bearing the cost of home installations.
“At 1 p.m. on a shiny day in the summer, local residents that are flipping on their switch near the project location can be pretty confident that the power is going to be coming from this facility,” Journel told commissioners.
The community solar program, enacted by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham in 2021, allows New Mexico residents to purchase shares or leases of solar farms that produce up to 5 megawatts under a state-approved subscription plan. Subscribers are eligible for reductions in their electric bill based on their share of the project. By law, 30% of a community solar project’s output must be reserved for lower-income subscribers.
The IRB ordinance was approved with little discussion. Commissioner Susana Chaparro made an apparent dig at the county’s $165 billion IRB supporting a controversial data center in Santa Teresa when she said, “It’s refreshing, after other presentations, to have honesty and transparency that prepared this commission for what’s coming instead of doing a last-minute vote.”
Chaparro was the lone vote against financing support for Project Jupiter, a mammoth artificial intelligence training facility under construction for use by Oracle and OpenAI, attributing her no vote to a lack of transparency by that project’s developers.
The solar project site is located at the junction of Myers and Holguin roads. The immediate area did not appear to have sustained damage from last summer’s catastrophic floods in Vado, Berino and adjacent terrain.
Journel said CVE’s interconnection agreement with El Paso Electric includes financing by the developer for “significant” distribution line upgrades in the Vado area, but did not disclose the estimated cost.
Neither the developer nor the utility responded Monday to queries for this story.
“We’re happy to continue seeing the growth of solar projects in the county,” County Chairman Manny Sanchez told the Journal, “and especially the community solar projects that can benefit our communities who may not be able to make investments for solar on their property. This will give our residents more choices.”
Algernon D’Ammassa is the Journal’s southern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at adammassa@abqjournal.com.
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