State Policy Roadmaps
New Mexico
Advanced Energy United’s resource, "Advanced Energy Creates Opportunities for New Mexico: A Policy Roadmap for New Mexico’s Next Governor," outlines how New Mexico’s next Governor can support the expansion of affordable advanced energy generation and storage, increase the capacity and efficiency of the state’s energy infrastructure through grid resilience technologies, integrate long term planning to prevent unnecessary costs; and promote customer-facing technologies to make energy more affordable for consumers across the state.
To achieve these goals, Advanced Energy United’s recommendations for New Mexico’s next Governor focus on these core tenets:
- Build it: New Mexico must prioritize reforms that reduce delays in planning, siting, permitting, interconnection, and procurement of advanced energy resources. With load growth accelerating, the state should focus on getting reliable, lower-cost resources built and connected faster so households and businesses aren’t left paying for more delay and uncertainty.
- Make it Flexible: New Mexico can lower costs right now by making it easier to adopt technologies that make electric demand flexible. This means scaling up distributed energy resources (DERs), energy efficiency, virtual power plants (VPPs), and advanced vehicle and building electrification solutions via state programs, plans, and rates. These innovative technologies make it easier for grid operators to keep costs down in the near term as well as in the long run, benefitting all electricity customers. They also prepare the grid for increased electricity demand from data centers, domestic manufacturing, electric vehicles (EVs), and heat pumps.
- Make it Affordable: New Mexico needs a stronger affordability agenda built around least-cost planning, smarter cost allocation, and better use of lower-cost alternatives before utilities default to major capital spending. The next governor can lead on polices that expand access to technologies and programs that can lower energy bills, improve oversight of new large loads, protect customers from unnecessary spending, and position New Mexico to capture additional savings through better regional coordination.
- Support Continued Growth of the Electric Vehicle Market: EVs are becoming an important part of New Mexico’s transportation and economic future, offering lower fuel and maintenance costs for residents and businesses, new opportunities for fleets, and a way to bring additional investment into the state. When used well, EVs and their batteries can also add electrons to the grid, provide backup power during grid failure, and put downward pressure on electric rates. To take EV adoption and integration to the next level, New Mexico should speed up charger permitting and energization processes, support the build-out of chargers for electric fleets, continue and/or consider expanding incentives that help make EVs accessible to all, and expand and standardize managed charging and vehicle-to-grid programs across the state.
To download the New Mexico state policy roadmap, please complete the form.
