New Mexico’s passed its first RPS in 2002 requiring investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to procure 10 percent of the electricity they sell from renewable sources by 2011. In 2007 former Governor Bill Richardson doubled the RPS requirement to 20 percent by 2020, and IOUs must meet a 15 percent benchmark by 2015. Qualifying sources include solar, wind, biomass, and hydroelectric.
New Mexico’s RPS also imposes a diversity requirement on IOUs’ renewable energy portfolios. IOUs must have no less than 20 percent solar, 20 percent wind, 10 percent other, and three percent distributed generation of the total RPS requirements.
New Mexico’s RPS also applies to rural electric cooperatives, which must make renewable energy comprise five percent of their retail sales by 2015. That requirement increases one percent a year until 2020.
The law exempts utilities if the cost of complying with the mandate exceeds a two percent cost threshold.
Utilities may buy and sell RECs to meet the RPS requirements.
Source: New Mexico Public Regulation Commission