Sunbelt Solar Project and College Upgrades Top San Juan County Agenda

San Juan County commissioners at their Feb. 24 meeting received an online briefing from Jesse Lyons, senior project manager at Gridworks, on the Sunbelt Solar project and unanimously approved San Juan College’s Building Controls Project, a $5.9 million HVAC controls upgrade with the county serving as fiscal agent and the agreement to be revisited in nine months. Lyons told commissioners the utility-backed solar-plus-storage development represents a major local investment and provided cost and technical details during the update.

Lyons reported the facility as a 125 megawatts DC site that "will be limited at the point of interconnection to just under 100 megawatts AC" and described a 100-megawatt solar array paired with battery storage. He said the system will include 26 power conversion stations and will interconnect at 345 kilovolts, tying into the San Juan generating switching station, with site work, trenching and a collector substation planned. Lyons also stated, "The total cost of the project is $254,000,000."

Local descriptions place the project on about 750 acres of vacant land near County Road 6880 and alternatively on private PNM land near U.S. Highway 64 in Fruitland; both location descriptors appeared in meeting materials, and county officials noted parcel and footprint verification remains necessary. Gridworks’ schedule presented to commissioners shows soft civil mobilization beginning immediately, full heavy equipment mobilization in April, civil grading from February through August 2026, solar installation from September 2026 through August 2027, battery installation from July 2026 through September 2027, commissioning in the spring to late 2027 window, and commercial operation expected in September 2027. Lyons’ team estimated roughly 175 temporary construction jobs and about 25 full-time operations jobs, a permanent-job figure Commissioner Sandra Lanier said she would follow up on.

PNM regulatory materials submitted in filings add technical and historic context and raise outstanding questions for the county and developer. PNM’s excerpts note an LGIA executed in October 2017 for a combined 100 MW solar plus a 30 MW BESS under earlier project naming, and the Definitive Interconnection Cluster 9 Facilities Study "identified a total cost of $0 for transmission upgrades to accommodate San Juan Solar 1 (Renamed to Sunbelt) using the existing San Juan Unit 3 bay position." Those same filings caveat that the $0 finding excludes TPIF estimations and state "For the purposes of the RFP analysis PNM assumed a cost of $500,000 for the transmission upgrade costs (TPIF)," and "PNM will not incur or pay for network upgrade costs." PNM testimony filed in support of the utility’s broader plan also indicates a larger battery option could satisfy Energy Transition Act resource capacity requirements; the present filings and meeting materials show a discrepancy between 30 MW, 50 MW and "up to 50 MW" storage figures that county officials flagged for clarification.

San Juan College executive vice president Edward DesPlas asked the commission to act as fiscal agent for the Building Controls Project after state approval required a fiscal agent because the college is behind on some audit filings. DesPlas warned contractors will work "classroom by classroom" because "It’s a complex project because we’ll be putting in new controls for the heating, ventilation, air conditioning for the college while the college is still in operation." The state will fund 75 percent of the $5.9 million project, the college will cover 25 percent, and County Manager Mike Stark’s clarification led commissioners to amend the fiscal-agent term with a nine-month revisit; the measure passed unanimously.

Commissioners asked for follow-up on workforce numbers, parcel-specific site maps and clarification of battery size, LGIA and interconnection cost responsibility before construction milestones proceed. The county set a timeline to re-evaluate the fiscal-agent arrangement in nine months while Sunbelt’s schedule targets commercial operation in September 2027 pending interconnection, permitting and final cost confirmations.