At ReNew Mexico, part of our mission is to bring energy diversification to New Mexico. With a little over a year of our social media presence mentioning energy diversification, we have begun seeing some misinformation and general questions about it, so we wanted to take a moment to clarify these points. Read more below!
As a multi-generational New Mexican, I have heard and seen how much New Mexico has changed within the last 80 years. New Mexico has grown and evolved, yet this growth is powered by the same electrical grid that our great-grandparents grew up with. There are still multiple locations across tribal and rural areas that are not connected to our energy grid. Looking more broadly however, a major concern for New Mexico’s grid is that our current energy mix and potential population growth may not be able to handle our future energy needs.
Energy diversification consists of having a wider mix of conventional energy, renewable energy (i.e. wind, solar, geothermal, etc.) and battery storage providing our electricity. Developing renewable energy production not only adds to economic growth but also decreases our demand on our baseload power. As our population grows, so will the strain on our existing baseload power. If we do not take initiative to develop our renewable energy now, we can end up in similar situations to California and Texas.
Our state is in an ideal place where citizens and policymakers can be at the forefront of decision making. Our population has not exploded like California or Texas yet, which gives us more time to learn from their challenges and develop properly. However, we can’t do that if we block future development this legislative session. Sign our petition to let your legislators know that we need to protect our growing renewable energy industry!