Sunday, August 02, 2009

PNM Retro


I tipped off the Albuquerque Journal about PNM trying to gut their program that lets homeowners put solar voltaic panels on their homes and sell power to PNM's grid. They did a great story on it today. They had interviewed me about it but I hit the editors scissors and they quoted Marty Chavez instead. Wouldn't you know?

Anyway, it was a solid story and I hope it brings pressure onto the Public Regulatory Commission to deny PNM's request. At least the part about homeowners like me selling power to them. I don't object to their proposed program of leasing peoples rooftops to place solar arrays to produce power. That could work too if homeowners can't afford the upfront costs themselves. Anything to get renewables on board. But, lets don't let PNM monopolize renewables too.

I saw Jeff Sterba, CEO of PNM at the Animal Humane Fundraiser on Saturday night. He has gone solar too. He has a shaved head and a goatee! So his head is soaking up the solar rays. Most people didn't recognize him, but I managed to figure out who he was. Why are so many people shaving their heads? I guess you save energy on blow dryers. Right Jeff?

2 comments:

PNM Currents said...

Mayor Baca, sorry to hear about Jerry. I have one very geriatric cat, and I can't imagine what it's like to live live without her!

As for your comments regarding PNM's filing: there are disagreements on some points of the filing, and hopefully we can work those out over the next few months. But we are moving forward on the customer-sited, PNM-owned solar PV program. In fact, we'll open an RFP at noon this Friday to take bids from all comers to install 4 MW of capacity under this proposed program -- and we're hoping NM solar installers/developers will respond in a big way.. check out www.pnm.com\rfp\solarpv . This reprents far more solar PV capacity than we have on our system at this time! -- Don Brown, Corporate Communications

Anonymous said...

I think solar panels are a great Idea. I think they would help save a lot of money at the drug rehab I work at too. Shaving your head would be optimum in saving energy as well any energy saved is well worth it.