As used in the Renewable Energy Act:

A. "commission" means the public regulation commission;

B. "energy storage" means batteries or other means by which energy can be retained and delivered as electricity for use at a later time;

C. "municipality" means a municipal corporation, organized under the laws of the state, and H class counties;

D. "public utility" means an entity certified by the commission to provide retail electric service in New Mexico pursuant to the Public Utility Act [Chapter 62, Articles 1 to 6 and 8 to 13 NMSA 1978] but does not include rural electric cooperatives;

E. "reasonable cost threshold" means an average annual levelized cost of sixty dollars ($60.00) per megawatt-hour at the point of interconnection of the renewable energy resource with the transmission system, adjusted for inflation after 2020;

F. "renewable energy" means electric energy generated by use of renewable energy resources and delivered to a public utility;

G. "renewable energy certificate" means a certificate or other record, in a format approved by the commission, that represents all the environmental attributes from one megawatt-hour of electricity generated from renewable energy;

H. "renewable energy resource" means the following energy resources, with or without energy storage:

(1) solar, wind and geothermal;

(2) hydropower facilities brought in service on or after July 1, 2007;

(3) biomass resources, limited to agriculture or animal waste, small diameter timber, not to exceed eight inches, salt cedar and other phreatophyte or woody vegetation removed from river basins or watersheds in New Mexico; provided that these resources are from facilities certified by the energy, minerals and natural resources department to:

(a) be of appropriate scale to have sustainable feedstock in the near vicinity;

(b) have zero life cycle carbon emissions; and

(c) meet scientifically determined restoration, sustainability and soil nutrient principles;

(4) fuel cells that do not use fossil fuels to create electricity; and

(5) landfill gas and anaerobically digested waste biogas;

I. "renewable portfolio standard" means the minimum percentage of retail sales of electricity by a public utility to electric consumers in New Mexico that is required by the Renewable Energy Act to be from renewable energy;

J. "renewable purchased power agreement" means an agreement that binds an entity generating power from renewable energy resources to provide power at a specified price and binds the purchaser to that price;

K. "zero carbon resource" means an electricity generation resource that emits no carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, or that reduces methane emitted into the atmosphere in an amount equal to no less than one-tenth of the tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, as a result of electricity production; and

L. "zero carbon resource standard" means providing New Mexico public utility customers with electricity generated from one hundred percent zero carbon resources.

History: Laws 2004, ch. 65, § 3; 2007, ch. 4, § 7; 2019, ch. 65, § 28.

The 2019 amendment, effective June 14, 2019, defined "energy storage", "renewable energy resource", "zero carbon resource" and "zero carbon resource standard", and revised the definitions of certain terms as used in the Renewable Energy Act; added a new Subsection B and redesignated former Subsections B through F as Subsections C through G, respectively; in Subsection E, after "cost threshold means", deleted "the cost established by the commission, above which a public utility shall not be required to add renewable energy to its electric energy supply portfolio pursuant to the renewable portfolio standard" and added the remainder of the subsection; in Subsection F, after "'renewable energy' means electric energy", deleted Subparagraphs F(1) through F(3) and added "and delivered to a public utility"; in Subsection G, after "attributes from one", deleted "kilowatt-hour" and added "megawatt-hour", after "electricity", deleted "generation" and added "generated", and after "renewable energy", deleted "resource"; added new Subsection H and redesignated former Subsections G and H as Subsections I and J; in Subsection I, after "'renewable portfolio standard' means the", added "minimum", after "retail sales", added "of electricity", and after "Renewable Energy Act to be", deleted "supplied by" and added "from"; in Subsection J, after "price and binds", deleted "a public utility to purchase the power at" and added "the purchaser to"; and added Subsections K and L.

The 2007 amendment, effective July 1, 2007, added Subsection B to define "municipality"; changed former Subsections B through D to Subsections C through E; added Subparagraph (b) of Paragraph (2) of Subsection E to include hydropower facilities brought in service after July 1, 2007; added Subsection F to define "renewal energy certificate"; changed former Subsection E to Subsection G; and added Subsection H to define "renewable purchased power agreement".