Continental Divide Electric Cooperative Your Co-op Faces the Future With Confidence
Chief Executive Officer and General Manager Robert E. Castillo, P.E. Grants Office 200 E. High St.• P.O. Box 1087 Grants, NM 87020 505-285-6656 505-287-2234, fax Gallup Office 2500 NM Highway 602 • P.O. Box 786 Gallup, NM 87305 505-863-3641 505-863-2175, fax After Hours 877-775-5211 Office Hours 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. (M-F) Satellite Payment Offices Villa de Cubero, Zuni, Tribal Utility Dept. Website www.cdec.coop Board of Trustees President Keith Gottlieb, At-Large Vice President Vacant Secretary-Treasurer Joe Hoskins, District 7 Lyle Adair District 8 Alex Griego District 1 Wes Malcolm District 2 Lloyd Ortega District 4 Claudio Romero District 3 Alfred Saavedra District 5
(Editor’s Note: This article is from CDEC’s 2019 Fiscal Year Annual Report, which would have been available at our April 25th annual meeting, canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The full report can be found at www.cdec.coop)
In January, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association announced the closure—by year’s end—of Escalante Station, a 253-megawatt coal-fired power plant near Prewitt, NM. The closure will impact 107 Tri-State employees. s an electric cooperative, our mission is The closure will not affect the reliable to meet the needs and expectations of electricity that CDEC delivers to its members. our members. That is because the power That mission has morphed we purchase comes from other from the early days of providing Tri-State electric generation first-time electric service to today’s facilities in New Mexico, multi-faceted offerings, including Colorado, Wyoming, and high-speed broadband internet. elsewhere along the Western As CDEC builds its Red Bolt Interconnection grid, which Broadband fiber-optic network stretches from Western Canada throughout our service area, south to Baja California in Mexico, members can take advantage of reaching eastward over the Rocky the economic and educational Mountains to the Great Plains. benefits that access to high-speed CDEC continues to work with Keith Gottlieb internet brings. This increases federal, state, and local lawmakers Board President our ability to compete with other to ensure their decisions take into communities for jobs. consideration the challenges we face in rural Going forward, it’s all about innovation and New Mexico, especially in light of the pending the challenge of balancing expectations. Escalante Station closure. An example of the latter is the need to have In closing, we anticipate that our future a diverse portfolio of fuels to help co-ops keep headquarters facility at the Cibola Industrial electricity rates as low as possible for all while Park will encourage economic development ensuring reliability and meeting member along that part of the Interstate 40 corridor, expectations for environmental sustainability. just as business growth is expected in the Milan One of CDEC’s sustainable, innovative and and Prewitt industrial parks. most cost-effective achievements in 2019 was The 680-acre Milan park is northeast of our ability to directly increase the amount of I-40 at exit 79, with direct access from New renewable energy our co-op members receive. Mexico State Road 122 (Historic Route 66). The In December 2019, two solar projects—one rail-served site is just east of State Road 122 in Grants and one in Bluewater—became and the BNSF railroad. It runs east to Ralph operational, enabling CDEC to purchase Card Road, north to Nursery Road and follows 6.9-megawatts of cheaper power over 20 years. Stanley Road to the south. The Village of Milan This less expensive power will contribute to in June approved a site plan of the property. more stable rates in the coming years. This spring, McKinley County secured a While co-op members across the country lease on state land for the Prewitt industrial can appreciate our industry’s sensible approach park site near Tri-State’s Escalante Station and to renewable energy, unfortunately, it comes McKinley Paper mill. hand-in-hand with the closure of coal-fired Sustaining the business strengths of this plants—more than 500 since 2010. not-for-profit electric cooperative is, and In 2019, New Mexico’s Energy Transition always will be central to our success. Act was passed into law, requiring electricity On behalf of Continental Divide Electric’s providers to transition to 80% renewable power board, thank you for supporting our co-op by 2040 and 100% by 2045. Co-ops have until management and staff in our endeavors. 2050 to de-carbonize.
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16 August 2020 • enchantment.coop
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