New Mexico commission opens inquiry on California impact to utilities reliability

The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission is asking utilities how California's summer market changes could impact resource adequacy and what utilities are doing to ensure reliability within the state when neighboring states may have issues this summer.

Commissioners approved the notice of inquiry during their June 23 meeting in response to a US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission docket. In response to last year's rotating grid outages, Cal-ISO in April proposed a series of tariff changes (ER21-1790) that included restrictions on "wheel throughs" of power through California from its hydro-rich northern neighbors to the adjacent Desert Southwest.

More than a dozen parties, including the Public Service Company of New Mexico and El Paso Electric, filed comments with FERC concerning Cal-ISO actions to alter rules, which has caused concern among a number of utilities and commissions in the West as those rules could compromise the purchases and sales of utilities, impacting the resource adequacy, New Mexico commissioner Cynthia Hall said, adding increased wildfires and other factors in California could lead to a shortage of adequate electricity resources.

The New Mexico notice sets "a requirement that El Paso Electric and PNM provide us with their concerns that they have stated before FERC and their plans for addressing their concerns of possible shortfalls as a result of these changes in CAISO and the Western market that may compromise their ability to provide reliable service," Hall said. "I'd just like to know what these two utilities are planning on doing going forward."

The notice includes a provision for Southwest Public Service, which filed comments at FERC on behalf of its Colorado affiliate but not for a New Mexico utility, regarding other transactions in the West.

"If they do trade with any parties in the west, whether or not they're in a market in the west, I would like for them to respond as well and let us know what plans the utilities all have in terms of making sure their resource adequacy is what it needs to be so we have continued reliable service when other states may not," Hall said.

SPS is a member of the Southwest Power Pool, which spans parts of 14 states, including Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming.

"I think its an important issue, an inquiry," New Mexico commissioner Joseph Maestas said, asking whether a similar inquiry for cooperatives is possible, which the commission will look into.