Home » Affulent neighborhoods that blocked PNM substation now face summer power outage warnings
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Affulent neighborhoods that blocked PNM substation now face summer power outage warnings
Neighborhood grid capacity maxed out after city, county permit growth beyond PNM capacity
By Pat Davis, The Paper. — For seven years, residents of some of Albuquerque’s most affluent neighborhoods have successfully fought to stop PNM from building a substation the utility said would eventually be needed to meet increased demand on a local part of the grid those expanding neighborhoods created. This week, ongoing development and higher temperatures may finally bring the neighborhood grid to its limits, forcing residents and businesses to take conservation measures not required in other neighborhoods on the grid.
“We were really close yesterday,” PNM Spokesperon Lisa Goodman told The Paper. a day after PNM customers in and around the North Albuquerque Acres neighborhood (roughly west of Tramway Blvd along Paseo del Norte Blve NE) received voicemails warning that the local grid may not be able to handle the load during high-demand afternoon and evening hours.
Voicemail from PNM to customers in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights in July 2026
A voicemail from PNM received by customers in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights, July 8, 2026 (nm.news)
Hello.
This is an important message from PNM.
Hello, this is PNM with an important update for customers in far northeast Albuquerque. Periods of extreme heat and high electricity demand may place additional stress on the electric system serving your area.
If system conditions require it, we may ask customers to voluntarily reduce electricity use between 4:00 PM and 9:00 PM to help support grid reliability and reduce the risk of outages in your area.
We’ll provide additional notice if a conservation request becomes necessary. For more information, please visit pnm.com/protectthegrid.
Thank you for your attention. We’ll continue to keep you informed if system conditions change.
While everyone agrees the grid in this area requires more capacity to serve the stripmalls and neighborhoods the city and county have approved against warnings from the utility, PNM’s various plans to add a new substation and transmission lines have all run afoul of neighbors who say powerlines and industrial equipment do not mix with their unobstructed mountain views, open space trails and large residential lots.
PNM’s grid stress area in Albuquerque’s Northeast Heights (PNM)
“I’ve been fighting with PNM now for almost seven years regarding the location of the substation,” Robert Dale Morrison testified during the most recent hearing before the Bernalillo County Commission which has jurisdiction on the unincorporated area just outside city limits where the newest substation plan was filed. Morrison has represented – and won – several campaigns opposing PNM plans for a new substation and transmission lines in and near his Sandia Heights Neighborhood. In the most recent hearing in May, County Commissioners Walt Benson, Barbara Baca, Eric Olivas and Frank Baca acknowledged the stress on the grid and likely brownouts coming, but then sided with Morrison and neighborhood associations by voting unanimously to reverse it’s planning commission’s approval of PNM’s application. Commissioner Adriann Barboa was absent.
Robert Morrison testifies against the latest PNM substation plan during the May 12, 2026 zoning appeal hearing before the Bernalillo County Commission.
While neighborhood associations have officially opposed PNM, at least some residents have become supporters, allbeit reluctantly. “I trust that we do need power in our area,” North Albuquerque Acres resident Richard Megenson told commissioners in May. “I don’t want to have to go without water, as my power is provided by an electrical well pump. I don’t want to go without any medical devices that I might need. I don’t want to go without air conditioning in the summer. So, I reluctantly want to have this.”
For now, PNM says electricity interruptions could come at any time unless a new substation is installed. “We need to talk about next steps,” Goodman said. “Next steps would be we can ask people in that area to conserve, and it would just reduce the amount of power that’s being that we’re asking the system to send to that area. It’s not everybody. If somebody conserves in the South Valley or the Westwide, it won’t make a difference for this area because it’s not about overall power and power shortage and and PNM doing intentional brownouts or blackouts. It is truly a sending power flows to that area of the grid that’s trying to use that much power and potentially maxing out and basically blowing individual feeders, resulting in outages.”
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