Lack of transmission lines keeps N.M. from meeting solar potential

Even as renewable power projects get a boost from the federal government, a lack of transmission lines prevents states such as New Mexico — where the sun shines more than 300 days a year — from converting the obvious potential into real watts that can charge smartphones and run air conditioners thousands of miles away. Aside from Phoenix, the nation’s sixth largest city, and Las Vegas, Nev., which glows around the clock, the region’s rural stretches — the ideal places for acres of solar panels — have few energy demands. And sending solar power from there to population centers isn’t as simple as loading coal into boxcars and shipping it cross country. “We have incredible renewable energy resources,” U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said during a visit earlier this year to a solar research lab in New Mexico. “The bad news is they’re where there are not many people. We need a distribution system that can accommodate that.” Transmission lines are key to developing the region’s solar resources. The problem is existing lines are maxing out, especially as the push intensifies to bring online more renewable energy. Building new lines can take years or even decades of cutting through a tangle of bureaucracy. Spanning some 200,000 miles, much of the nation’s existing transmission system is aging and will need replacement before 2030, according to preliminary findings of a new Department of Energy study on transmission congestion. In New Mexico, there were 18 utility-scale solar projects in the pipeline during the last fiscal year compared to none in 2010. But major transmission proposals that would crisscross the state are still in the permitting phase. Some progress has been made in the last two years, but the lofty goals set years ago by former Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson to develop megaprojects and make New Mexico the “solar capital” of the U.S. have yet to be realized. Part of it has to do with competition...more