Utility Public Service Company of New Mexico’s (PNM) plan to procure energy from 950MW of solar and storage facilities by 2022 and replace its retiring 562MW San Juan Generating Station coal plant has been handed a boost.
Facebook has been asked to renegotiate the terms of contracts with a New Mexico utility, signed for solar energy and energy storage facilities which will power a data centre in the state.
Electricity from 100MW of energy storage facilities will be purchased by US public utility company El Paso Electric, following a competitive solicitation process.
Two US Senators introduced a bill in Congress at the beginning of this week that would require the national Secretary of Energy to establish research and demonstration programmes and deployment strategies for energy storage, if passed.
The growing commercial viability of energy storage has led regulators in the US state of New Mexico to add the technology to the suite of resources available to utilities in their forward-planning.
