ABQJournal: “Biomass Plant Gets Tax Credit”
From the Journal:
A company proposing to build a biomass plant near Estancia has been granted a tax credit worth $2.74 million a year. In an order issued Thursday, Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Secretary Joanna Prukop upheld Western Water and Power in every point of its appeal of a September decision by her department’s staff to deny it the credit. [Emphasis ours].
The company plans to build a $90 million, 35-megawatt electric power plant that would be fueled by wood and forest byproducts, primarily local piñon and juniper. But in two letters to the company last year, staff of ENMR’s Energy Conservation and Management Division told it that its application for the renewable energy production tax credit was incomplete. In response to an appeal by Western Water and Power, the division’s staff argued the company had failed to show two things: 1) that the resource powering the plant, biomass in the area, had “substantial long-term production potential,” and 2) that it had contracts to actually buy biomass from surrounding landowners.
But in her order, Prukop says the staff misinterpreted state law and that the company’s application was complete when it was submitted. “I find that the specific requirements mandated by ECMD are not supported by the Act or Rules,” Prukop writes. “However, if ECMD’s interpretation of the Act is correct, and ‘substantial long term production potential’ is connected to the resources being consumed to generate electricity, WWPP did provide documentation to support production potential.”
