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Rows of solar panels at a newly completed community solar farm Wednesday in Las Vegas, N.M. Several projects are underway statewide.
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Rows of solar panels at a newly completed community solar farm Wednesday in Las Vegas, N.M. Several projects are underway statewide.
About five years after the New Mexico Legislature passed a law creating the state’s community solar program, projects around the state are finally getting off the ground.
Officials, lawmakers and renewable energy advocates have acknowledged the rollout of the state’s community solar program has been slower than expected, but in recent months, the program’s momentum appears to be increasing as projects materialize.
Community solar proponents believe the last five years have offered lessons for improving the statewide program as it approaches an expansion in capacity that will allow for more projects to be awarded and built.
The state’s community solar program allows people, businesses and municipalities to subscribe to solar projects and receive credits toward their utility bills, offering an opportunity for renters and low-income residents to benefit from significant savings and increase New Mexico’s solar portfolio.
The most recent community solar project completed is called the Pino Site in Las Vegas, N.M., where several people gathered Wednesday morning to celebrate the project coming online.
The facility, off Seventh Street at the northern end of Las Vegas, is one of eight community solar projects around the state developed by a partnership of Albuquerque-based Pluma Construction, Forefront Power, Standard Solar and Solstice. The projects have developed a total capacity of 48.4 megawatts of solar, including facilities in Las Cruces, Silver City and Clovis, along with others. All of the projects have been completed except one, a facility in Alamogordo, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Chris Pacheco, owner of Pluma Construction, said the community solar program has proved to be a “tremendous growth opportunity” for New Mexico companies like his.
“What this does show is that even if you are a small New Mexico company, if you branch out and partner, you can grow your company,” Pacheco said. “I hope this portfolio is remembered not just because of the successful energy projects, but as an example of what can happen when local leadership and strong partnerships come together for the state of New Mexico.”
Rep. Tara Lujan, D-Santa Fe, praised the community solar program and the Pino Site at the event.
“One of many reasons why I’ve become a legislator is to really ensure that our dollars and our economy and our budget are going towards what we see up here today,” Lujan said, gesturing at the rows of solar panels behind her.
The projects by the partnership have been among the first to come online from an initial round of community solar awards announced by the Public Regulation Commission in May 2023.
Of the 47 projects — and about 196 megawatts of community solar — chosen by the commission, 13 were online Wednesday, agency spokesperson Patrick Rodriguez said. He noted all of the awarded projects are expected to come online in the next few years, and 39 of them are on track to be complete by the end of 2026.
In recent years, state utility regulators approved an increase to the capacity of the community solar program, meaning more projects will eventually come online.
One hurdle for community solar projects getting off the ground has been the cost of interconnection to the electrical grid, which can run into the hundreds of thousands or even into the millions of dollars, said Jim DesJardins, executive director of the Renewable Energy Industry Association of New Mexico.
Sometimes those costs are not known by developers upfront, he said, and the interconnection costs can make a project less viable financially.
“If developer ‘X’ knew that the site that they bid on was going to require a $10 million investment to upgrade a substation, they would have said, ‘I think we’ll look somewhere else,’ but they didn’t know that ahead of time,” DesJardins said. “So we need to get better at sharing information.”
DesJardins’ trade group and others have argued for more “visibility” of interconnection costs by utilities in a rulemaking proceeding that is underway at the commission. The process is expected to yield changes to community solar regulations in the coming months as part of an effort improve the program.
Another proposal for the rule change is the concept of consolidated billing, which would eliminate the need for a separate monthly bill for a community solar subscription.
The company Solstice — which manages subscriptions for several community solar projects — is required to send its subscribers in New Mexico a separate invoice from their utility bill, Tyler Yasa, one of the company’s executives, said in an interview, adding that under state regulations, customers are kicked off the program after one missed payment.
Yasa described the billing rules as an “existential threat” to New Mexico’s community solar program, saying the dual billing system has essentially resulted in his company accepting the default risk from utilities for community solar subscribers, since those subscribers — which are largely low-income — are more likely to relinquish their subscription to community solar than risk losing their power if they are ever unable to pay.
The company was the first to start billing community solar subscribers in New Mexico, he said, and its data shows turnover in subscribers that he attributed to the billing issues.
“Because of how quickly we’re churning through customers, we’re going to reach a saturation level at some point in the very near future where we can’t continue to subscribe these customers, because we’ve already reached out to the majority of them,” Yasa said. “I think in order to make this program as successful as possible and actually have longevity, we have to address the subscriber question — where does that default risk land?”
He pointed out several other states have moved from dual billing to consolidated billing for community solar programs, including Maryland, Illinois and New York.
In the rulemaking proceeding underway at the Public Regulation Commission, commissioners will considering several models for consolidated billing. Solstice and others have pushed for a feature called net crediting, which includes the application of the community solar credit directly on the subscriber’s utility bill.
Comments submitted to the commission by a host of advocacy groups — including the Coalition for Community Solar Access and Sierra Club — urged the commission to adopt consolidated billing with net crediting in the coming rule change, calling both features “essential to maintaining the program’s low-income participation objectives.”
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