Tres Amigas: What could have been

An electricity superstation that never came to be might have helped last month with Texas/New Mexico blackouts inspired by subzero temperatures, but it likely would not have prevented them, according to officials of the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM).

The Tres Amigas project was intended to be the nation's first renewable energy market hub in which the nation's three power grids - Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC), Southwest Power Pool (SPP), and Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) - would be interconnected to create an extensive power hub.

"Right now, if somebody were to build a wind farm in Clovis, they would have one option to sell their power and that's to Xcel Energy," said David Stidham, senior vice president and chief operating officer for Tres Amigas, in a 2012 interview with The Eastern New Mexico News. "Once Tres Amigas is built, they'll have the option of selling into the Western Electric Coordinating Council, to PNM, to Xcel, or to any of the municipalities or power authorities within the Electric Reliability Council of Texas."

Curry County was chosen as the location for the project's power center, which was to consist of seven main buildings - three air and gas insulated substations, a voltage source converter, battery buildings to house 10 megawatts of batteries, a maintenance warehouse, and a parts warehouse.

As Tres Amigas described itself on its website, the "transmission superstation will utilize high voltage direct current (HVDC) technology to link the Eastern, Western, and Texas U.S. interconnections at a single location in New Mexico via a multi-node, multi-terminal interconnection."

Tom Fallgren, PNM vice president of generation, said his understanding of why the Tres Amigas project failed to come to fruition was because ERCOT, the Texas power grid, would not agree to connect.

But from ERCOT's perspective, that makes sense, Fallgren explained, saying that ERCOT was established in Texas because it wanted to contain its electrical grid within Texas borders. He said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has oversight of all (energy) interstate commerce, but ERCOT is its own independent entity, so it can make the argument that it does not fall under FERC's jurisdiction. Interconnection with the nation's other two power grids would have meant falling under their regulations.

PNM is one of over 60 participants in the nation's western power grid and is a member of the WECC, whose mission is to promote electric system reliability in the western interconnection.Fallgren said the western grid did not experience blackouts during the freezing temperatures last month, but the eastern grid did experience limited blackouts due to limited generation capability but not to the same extent as ERCOT, which serves 90 percent of Texas.

"What's happened is you have these extreme cold temperatures, but they only happen for a week every 10 years, so in an open market structure, there isn't sufficient financial incentive for someone to go out and winterize their plant for that one week every 10 years," Fallgren said.

He said one of the fundamental differences between New Mexico and Texas is Texas has a free (power) market, which means just about anyone can connect to a generator on the ERCOT grid. He added that during the freezing event last month, a number of generators froze up, causing the blackout issues.

"If ERCOT had been connected into the eastern grid, would it have prevented it? Likely not. We did see rolling blackouts in SPP as well. It would have probably minimized it, and it probably would have speeded the recovery of it."

ERCOT officials declined to comment regarding the Tres Amigas project or the blackout event.

Regarding a project like Tres Amigas ever coming to fruition, Fallgren said that will depend largely on energy industry policy and economics.

"I think in general, as we go to maintaining system reliability through the transition to carbon free energy, transmission is critical across the system. As we get to transmission lines, there's a lot of variables there," Fallgren said, adding that the Tres Amigas project was expensive, and there were a lot of questions that needed to be answered with the project, such as who would bear the costs for transmission upgrades, and who is responsible for those interconnection and upgrade issues?

"Even though I think SPS is well connected to the rest of the western grid, I think you are still going to continue to see transmission projects that continue to increase thatcapacity of connectivity with the eastern grid," Fallgren said.

"This is really about planning resources to handle these extreme weather events that are caused by climate change. It is difficult to look back on the history of these weather events. That makes the job of forecasting them very difficult, and it makes it really hard to plan for them, but that is the lesson we are having to learn, because unfortunately, they are going to get more common. I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned as we not only navigate to carbon free resources but also as we navigate to the climate changes we are now seeing."

The following is the history of the Tres Amigas project as reported by The Eastern New Mexico News and other media:

• Local discussions of the $1.6 billion project originally began in the 2010-time frame with an estimated 2016 completion date and promises to bring 200 to 600 construction jobs to the local area and 50 permanent jobs.

• After claims of having the project 75 percent financed in 2014, Tres Amigas announced in 2015 that the Southwestern Public Service - a subsidiary of Xcel Energy and the project's access to the eastern grid - dropped out of the interconnection agreement with Tres Amigas.

• In 2016, Tres Amigas officials announced it would be another three to five years before the project would be finished.

• In February 2017, The Associated Press reported statements from Tres Amigas officials, saying "advances in technology and changes in the project's business model have reduced the amount of money and land required for the project" and that Tres Amigas would just be connecting the western and eastern grids initially. Officials stated that the company's focus continued to remain on connecting "independently operated electrical grids and (to) move renewable energy generated in the rural reaches of Eastern New Mexico to western U.S. population centers."

Word of the project fell silent after that.

Multiple attempts last week to contact Tres Amigas officials through the company website failed. One-time company spokespersons could not be located for comment.