NM Renewable Development, LLC (NMRD), a joint venture between subsidiaries of utilities PNM Resources and American Electric Power, will build two 50MW solar PV projects in New Mexico to power Facebook facilities.
Last week, PNM Resources' New Mexico utility, PNM, received approval from the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (NMPRC) to purchase the generation from the two projects in order to continue serving the Facebook data centre in New Mexico with what is claimed to be 100% renewable energy.
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The first facility is expected to be operational by the end of 2019, followed by the second facility in June 2020. Each plant will require US$70 million investment and is expected create approximately 200 construction jobs.
“With these two new projects, we have worked with PNM to bring 396MW of new wind and solar projects that will contribute to a greener grid and help bring more renewable energy and investment to New Mexico,” said Bobby Hollis, head of Global Energy at Facebook. “We appreciate New Mexico's supportive environment that has enabled us to procure this amount of renewable energy so quickly.”
