The company looking to acquire PNM isn’t waiting on the courts or regulators to approve the deal before making big investments in New Mexico’s renewable energy community.
To make the most of solar panels needed on a utility scale, solar producers invest in trackers that move solar panels to track the sun throughout the day, maximizing the exposure of panels to the best solar energy. Array Technologies is one of the country’s largest producers of solar trackers and other solar infrastructure tools and they are based right here in New Mexico.
On Thursday, Avangrid announced that it would be deploying more than $30 million worth of trackers from New Mexico’s Array Tech. to power a huge 321MW True North solar farm project in Texas.
“We are very proud to announce this collaboration with Albuquerque, New Mexico based
Array Technologies,” said Pedro Azagra, CEO of AVANGRID. “Projects like True North are
crucial to decarbonization and will help the country reach its ambitious clean energy goals
and help New Mexico grow industrial green energy jobs”.
“This is a true win-win that both supports our state’s economy and drives forward a clean
energy future,” said New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham.
Regulatory approval for Avangrid to acquire PNM was denied by the Public Regulation Commission last year, though those members are no longer in office after voters approved a Constitutional amendment to replace the elected regulators with appointees of the governor. The case is now pending before the Supreme Court but could be returned for reconsideration by the new commission.