El Paso Electric announced today that it plans to seek a delay of its 2017 rate case filing in New Mexico.
Case No. 15-00109-UT, the docket in which the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (NMPRC) authorized the Company to sell its interest in the Four Corners Power Plant, requires the Company to make a general rate case filing in the second quarter of 2017 using a historical test year ended December 31, 2016. EPE has met with Staff of the NMPRC and the Office of the New Mexico Attorney General to discuss filing a motion to amend the order in Case No. 15-00109-UT to allow for the delay of a rate case filing, and the proposal will be circulated among other intervening parties in that case for their positions. Any motion would be subject to approval by the NMPRC.
“Our preliminary analysis indicates that the revenue deficiency in New Mexico does not justify the expense necessary to proceed with a rate case using the dates outlined in the order from the Four Corners Power Plant case,” said Mary Kipp, El Paso Electric CEO. “If allowed to delay the rate increase request in New Mexico our resources can be utilized to work on other corporate initiatives and to provide enough time to fully analyze our options regarding our investments in Palo Verde Unit 3. While recovery of our significant investments like Montana Power Station Units 3 and 4 is important and will be pursued at a later time if the delay is approved, we don’t expect the postponement of this rate case to significantly impact our financial performance.”
El Paso Electric is a regional electric utility providing generation, transmission and distribution service to approximately 411,000 retail and wholesale customers in a 10,000 square mile area of the Rio Grande valley in west Texas and southern New Mexico. El Paso Electric’s common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol EE.