Aug. 31—There are dozens of wind and solar projects in New Mexico and even more planned for the future. The booming industry doesn’t seem to be slowing down, despite challenges like workforce shortages.
Massive sites are based in New Mexico, from Array Technologies’ manufacturing site in Albuquerque to Arcosa Wind Towers’ headquarters in Belen. Plus, huge-scale projects like SunZia are making progress toward completion in the state.
Lynn Mostoller is the executive director of the New Mexico Renewable Energy Transmission Authority, or RETA, a legislatively created organization that facilitates the development of large-scale renewable energy transmission and storage projects.
RETA has two operational projects — transmission upgrade High Lonesome Mesa and transmission line Western Spirit.
The organization also has four projects in development: SunZia, one of the largest energy projects in the nation, Rio Sol, a transmission line that runs along with SunZia, North Path, a transmission line planned to have even more capacity than SunZia, and Mora Line Project, two transmission line segments anticipated to be operational at the end of this year.
Mostoller said there’s a lot going on in terms of transmission, which is a long-term process.
The Mora Line Project is expected to be operational toward the end of 2024, SunZia project by 2025 or 2026, Rio Sol by 2028 and North Path in the 2030s.
SunZia has garnered national attention for its enormous scope, with Pattern Energy boasting it as the largest clean energy infrastructure project in U.S. history as well as Indigenous opposition in Arizona because the transmission line would cross historic and sacred sites. Federal courts earlier this year rejected requests to stop the project, so construction continues.
The line will span 550 miles with a kilovolt high-voltage direct current transmission line between central New Mexico and Arizona. It’ll have the capacity to transport 3,000 megawatts of energy, which is enough to power 1 million homes, according to RETA.
New Mexico won’t actually be getting any of that energy. It’ll be generated in the state and sent to markets in Arizona and California.
Mostoller said there are still community benefits, like money generated from wind farm leases and easements. The Rio Sol line took a private capital investment of $2.4 billion and is expected to generate $1.2 billion in economic benefits in New Mexico and Arizona, according to the project’s developers. New Mexico should see $667 million in direct impacts and another $824 in indirect impacts, according to an economic survey from the EC3 Environmental Consulting Group.
“There’s quite a bit of economic benefit,” Mostoller said.
Jobs
Mostoller said these massive projects bring in thousands of jobs during construction, though there are less jobs long term.
“While construction jobs, by their nature, are temporary, New Mexico has these resources and it’s economical for private companies to come here and develop,” she said.
Calhoun added that the boost in construction jobs also has indirect economic impacts, like restaurants getting a lot more business.
“I’ve visited wind farms where particularly some of the local restaurants had a booming business with all the contractors there from out of state, and they do have a pop-up hamburger stand that made great money for a year and a half or two years,” he said.
Calhoun said there are also some permanent jobs, like rural substations where the electrical power is gathered and put into the grid.
“Those are pretty high-tech jobs that have a big impact on the community,” he said.
Workforce is a common issue for many industries. The New Mexico renewables industry is no different.
Mostoller said it’s not uncommon for construction workers to come from out of state to fill positions. Calhoun said sometimes experts in the industry have to be highly specialized and come in from all over the country.
The state’s community colleges and Workforce Solutions Department are working on training solutions to fill job gaps.
“They do job fairs. The companies do job fairs. They try to hire as much locally as they can,” Mostoller said.
Calhoun said renewable energy projects are a good opportunity for education. He brought up Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari, which has a wind turbine students train on.
“It’s a great opportunity for colleges and community colleges to get down to some of that basic training. It’s not high level physics like Los Alamos would require, but it’s just good mechanics,” he said. “And it’s a good job for young people to get involved in the wind industry.”
Petroleum industries operate on a boom and bust cycle, he said, but larger renewable projects like SunZia are here for the long run.
“If I were 50 years younger, I’d actually go for one of those positions,” Calhoun said.
Getting here
Europe is decades ahead of America when it comes to renewable energy. That’s what Mike Calhoun, manufacturer consultant, said. He formerly worked for Trinity Structural Towers, which is now Arcosa Wind Towers.
Europe was more energy desperate than the U.S.,, lacking the oil and gas reserves America had, leading to an earlier interest in the industry, particularly in the 1970s with oil shortages in Denmark, Calhoun said.
“The Europeans were much more interested in alternative energy sources earlier than the U.S. was, probably 20, 30 years earlier,” he said.
Renewables started gaining popularity in California in the 2000s when General Electric acquired Enron Wind, Calhoun said, and the interest has ramped up ever since.
The increased interest in the U.S. happens despite the country’s massive oil and gas resources. Calhoun said climate change, in part, has helped drive the transition toward clean energy.
Fossil fuels are a finite resource, and it takes money to develop the more and more advanced technology to extract deep oil and gas reserves.
There are some holes in the renewable industry.
Mostoller, who started as RETA’s executive director in July, said one of her goals for the organization is to get storage projects going in the next three to five years. But first, the financial situation needs to become more realistic.
The norm for storage system capacity is about four hours, Mostoller said, and renewables need a 10-hour battery, which she said is “prohibitively expensive.”
“So I’d say the first thing that has to happen for RETA to really get going on this is that the economics have to improve,” she said. “A lot of people are working on it. Prices are coming down.”
She said people also need to be thinking more about the reliability of the power grid and how intermittent power sources like wind and solar could affect that. That’s where storage comes in, she explained, to ensure the power grid is balanced and doesn’t take in too much power all at once.
She said RETA needs to partner with private companies working in the renewable space to get that going, since RETA is a relatively small organization.