Merrie Lee Soules has never worked for a utility in any sense, which, on first glance, could make her an odd choice to testify before the interim Legislative Science, Technology and Telecommunications committee about the energy transition happening in the electric sector.
But Soules has a unique take on this topic.
“I’m not an attorney. I’ve never worked for an electric utility,” she told legislators as she opened her remarks. “But I bring a different outside perspective to the work that I’ve done at the (New Mexico Public Regulation Commission) as a citizen participating in a really important process that occurs here in New Mexico.”
Since 2015, she has intervened as a private citizen in cases before the regulatory agency, particularly those dealing with El Paso Electric.
Unlike many of the intervenors in the utility cases, Soules does not represent a specific organization. Instead, she intervenes on behalf of herself and other utility customers.
Soules credits her efforts, as well as the efforts of other intervenors, with saving El Paso Electric customers about $200 million in rates, though she acknowledged that the utility would likely disagree with that assertion.
As someone who believes everything that uses fossil fuels should be electrified to help address climate change, Soules criticized the three investor-owned utilities that serve New Mexicans for some of their plans to meet renewable portfolio requirements.
She focused on one area—the use of renewable energy certificates, or RECs, to meet renewable portfolio requirements. These are created when a megawatt of electricity is generated using renewable sources and distributed to customers.
Soules emphasized that these credits are not renewable energy. Instead, utilities use them to offset fossil fuel use.
State law requires that the investor-owned utilities—the Public Service Company of New Mexico, Southwestern Public Service and El Paso Electric—get at least 20 percent of the electricity they provide customers from renewable sources. That percentage will increase to 40 percent in 2025.
Of those three utilities, the presentation Soules provided the committee showed that only El Paso Electric is not currently meeting that requirement, though it forecasts that it will achieve 40 percent in 2025.
According to Soules, El Paso Electric has not met renewable energy requirements since 2014 and has not used RECs in an attempt to get there.
Meanwhile, PNM has plans to add new renewable generation by 2025, but if those efforts are not successful, Soules said PNM will turn to RECs to meet the requirements.
SPS, on the other hand, does not have those plans to build new renewable generation or enter into purchase power agreements, according to Soules. Instead, the information she provided legislators shows SPS relying on RECs to meet requirements.
In addition to utility actions creating RECs, the utilities can buy and sell RECs.
Even utility customers with solar panels can even generate RECs, which can then be sold to utilities. PNM requires customers to fill out an application that comes with a $150 fee to sell RECs to the utility. After that, customers can make a quarter of a cent per kilowatt hour of generated clean energy. Larger customers that generate at least 600 kilowatt hours a month can receive even more money for their RECs.
But, Soules said, using RECs means that the utilities don’t necessarily have to retire a lot of fossil fuel generation sources and replace them with renewable resources.
At the same time, Soules informed legislators that while all renewable energy generation results in RECs, not all RECs are available to the utility and not all of them can be used to meet renewable portfolio requirements.
She also acknowledged that the utilities have a challenge ahead of them in meeting those renewable portfolio requirements. As more and more things that have traditionally been powered by fossil fuels are powered using electricity, such as electric vehicles or heating, the utilities will need to provide more and more energy to customers to meet that growing demand.
In light of those challenges, Soules argued that the PRC does not have the tools it needs.
That is where the legislature comes in.
“You (the legislature) tell the PRC what to do, give them the tools to do it and it absolutely can be done,” Soules said.
