New Mexico's Leading Role in the New Energy Economy

Despite New Mexico's leadership in the New Energy Economy, it is regrettably often in the national blindspot. Most of the rest of the country has little idea what resources and advantages we have or what we are working on in the state. In this blog I will shed some light on these subjects. This first post simply lays out some of New Mexico's key advantages.

• World-class developable solar, wind and geothermal resources: New Mexico has the 2nd best solar resource in the United States, the 5th best non-coastal wind resource, and untapped geothermal potential. Our extensive public lands and large-tract ranch lands in the state make developing this resource much easier than in many states with a more fragmented land ownership. Furthermore, New Mexico's relatively small population means that the state has excess power capacity that can be used in other states that have large load centers and more challenges in bringing productive renewable power plants online.
• Strong state and federal level clean energy champions: New Mexico Senator Bingaman is Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, incoming Senator Udall is a passionate renewable energy advocate, and incoming Representative Lujan is a veteran of the Public Regulation Commission which oversees our electric utilities and helped to put in place the state Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard. Furthermore, Governor Richardson was Secretary of Energy under President Clinton, and one of the five FERC Commissioners is from New Mexico. This makes New Mexico one of the strongest federal energy delegations in the nation.
  
• World-class renewable energy research institutions and a strong venture capital community: New Mexico is home to Sandia National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the University of New Mexico and several other colleges actively involved in research on renewable energy technologies. 9.8% of the state's population has a masters degree or better, compared with only 8.9% nationally. New Mexico is well known in the scientific community for its research capacity in the area of solar power, materials science and energy conversion and harvesting. These research centers have been placing a much greater emphasis on the commercialization of their new technologies in recent years. Add to this an established venture capital community with ready money to invest and connections to VCs around the country, and you have a great place to start or grow a clean technology company. 
• A strong and growing clean tech business cluster: New Mexico generally, and Albuquerque in particular, is home to a significant and growing base of leading clean tech businesses. These businesses are attracted by both our natural solar resources and research capability and fueled by New Mexico's low cost of doing business. In the area of solar manufacturing, Schott Solar, Advent Solar, Emcore, Skyfuel and Sundrop all call New Mexico home. We must not forget that New Mexico also has a growing biofuels industry and other clean tech businesses, like Miox.
• World-class solar and wind training centers: Most people outside of the state are not aware that New Mexico is home to leading solar AND wind training centers. For example, San Juan College's Renewable Energy Program has an excellent reputation in the industry, as does Mesalands College's Wind Research and Training Center. There are few renewable energy training centers that can compete with these two, and other centers are emerging around the state. The centers are also known for their offering of national recognized certifications (like NABCEP and MSSC Certified Production Technicians), their customer service orientation,  and ability to develop customized training for companies looking to locate in New Mexico or looking to grow their workforce. Combined with New Mexico's attractive quality of life, companies that locate in New Mexico can easily ensure a qualified  workforce.
• A small and responsive state government: This customer service orientation extends to state government more broadly. Unlike larger states, New Mexico remains small, well-coordinated and focused on developing its New Energy Economy. The New Mexico Economic Development Partnership helps companies work through the logistics of locating the state. The Clean Energy Working Group brings together point people from all of the essential departments to resolve company requests quickly and effectively. We hear regularly from companies how accessible the key officials are and how quickly they can get their doors open.

 

There are primarily four interconnected pathways of economic development in this area of Clean Energy and Clean Technology for New Mexico. The state is actively working on all of these pathways to promote the economic development and prosperity of the state.

1. Green Technology Push: Leveraging the R&D resources of the state to develop a vibrant and robust community of active entrepreneurs and start-up companies.
2. Growing the Green Manufacturing/Production Cluster: Growing the emerging cluster of existing clean tech manufacturers and biofuels producers to attract similar companies.
3. Renewable Utility-Scale Generation: Pushing forward the development of solar, geothermal and wind projects in NM.
4. Energy Efficiency and Distributed Generation: Promoting the expansion of existing small-scale solar and wind installations and energy efficiency retrofits of our building stock.

Any companies, entrepreneurs, researchers and individuals who are interested in contributing to New Mexico's growing leadership in the New Energy Economy should contact Brendan Miller, Green Economy Manager, at brendan.miller [at] state.nm.us.