N.M. Stat. § 62-16-3
Definitions.
As used in the Renewable Energy Act:
A. "commission" means the public regulation commission;
B. "energy storage" means batteries or other means by which energy can be
retained and delivered as electricity for use at a later time;
C. "municipality" means a municipal corporation, organized under the laws of the
state, and H class counties;
D. "public utility" means an entity certified by the commission to provide retail
electric service in New Mexico pursuant to the Public Utility Act [Chapter 62, Articles 1
to 6 and 8 to 13 NMSA 1978] but does not include rural electric cooperatives;
E. "reasonable cost threshold" means an average annual levelized cost of sixty
dollars ($60.00) per megawatt-hour at the point of interconnection of the renewable
energy resource with the transmission system, adjusted for inflation after 2020;
F. "renewable energy" means electric energy generated by use of renewable
energy resources and delivered to a public utility;
G. "renewable energy certificate" means a certificate or other record, in a format
approved by the commission, that represents all the environmental attributes from one
megawatt-hour of electricity generated from renewable energy;
H. "renewable energy resource" means the following energy resources, with or
without energy storage:
(1)
solar, wind and geothermal;
(2)
hydropower facilities brought in service on or after July 1, 2007;
(3)
biomass resources, limited to agriculture or animal waste, small diameter
timber, not to exceed eight inches, salt cedar and other phreatophyte or woody
vegetation removed from river basins or watersheds in New Mexico; provided that these
resources are from facilities certified by the energy, minerals and natural resources
department to:
(a) be of appropriate scale to have sustainable feedstock in the near vicinity;
(b) have zero life cycle carbon emissions; and
(c) meet scientifically determined restoration, sustainability and soil nutrient
principles;
(4)
fuel cells that do not use fossil fuels to create electricity; and
(5)
landfill gas and anaerobically digested waste biogas;
I. "renewable portfolio standard" means the minimum percentage of retail sales of
electricity by a public utility to electric consumers in New Mexico that is required by the
Renewable Energy Act to be from renewable energy;
J. "renewable purchased power agreement" means an agreement that binds an
entity generating power from renewable energy resources to provide power at a
specified price and binds the purchaser to that price;
K. "zero carbon resource" means an electricity generation resource that emits no
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, or that reduces methane emitted into the
atmosphere in an amount equal to no less than one-tenth of the tons of carbon dioxide
emitted into the atmosphere, as a result of electricity production; and
L. "zero carbon resource standard" means providing New Mexico public utility
customers with electricity generated from one hundred percent zero carbon resources.