By Luis A. Reyes Jr., CEO, Kit Carson Electric Coop

In Northern New Mexico, wildfire season changes the way we think about electricity.
When fire danger rises, high winds move through the mountains or severe weather damages infrastructure, an outage can become much more than an inconvenience. For families, it can mean losing refrigeration, communications or the ability to power medical equipment. For first responders, it can complicate an already difficult emergency. For communities separated by miles of mountainous terrain, restoring service can take time.
That is why we need to talk about energy resilience.

Our electric system serves some of the most beautiful—and challenging—terrain in the country. Power must travel across mountains, forests and remote areas to reach the communities Kit Carson Electric Cooperative serves. Wildfire, falling trees, lightning, snow, high winds and other hazards can threaten that infrastructure.
We work every day to reduce those risks. Vegetation management, system maintenance, wildfire mitigation and improvements to the electric grid are essential.

But prevention is only one part of resilience.

We also have to ask a simple question:
If the power coming into a community is interrupted, how do we keep critical services powered until the system can be restored?

Renewable energy needs storage

Northern New Mexico has an extraordinary solar resource. But the sun does not always shine when electricity is needed most.

That is why energy storage matters.

Batteries can provide valuable short-term storage. Long-duration storage is intended to address a different challenge: preserving energy when it is available and making it available again over longer periods when the grid needs support.

That is the purpose behind Kit Carson’s work to integrate clean hydrogen as part of a broader renewable-energy system.

The concept is straightforward. Solar energy powers equipment that separates water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen can then be stored. When electricity is needed, that stored energy can be converted back into power through long duration storage.

Engineering analysis for the project has been centered on exactly the challenge our rural communities face: providing backup electricity when transmission service is unavailable. Modeling has examined several days of potential backup capability depending on location and seasonal solar conditions.

This isn’t about hydrogen for hydrogen’s sake.
It’s about keeping energy here so it can be available when our communities need it.

Water deserves careful attention—and clear facts

No one at Kit Carson dismisses concerns about water. In Northern New Mexico, water is connected to our acequias, agriculture, families, culture and future. Questions about water should be asked, and they deserve answers based on facts.

One fact deserves to be much clearer in this conversation:
The water being evaluated for the Questa Hydrogen Project is not drinking water. It is a non-potable water source being evaluated for an industrial energy-storage process.

The proposed source is an existing deep well on the former tailing site property. The water must undergo treatment, including reverse osmosis, before it reaches the quality required by the hydrogen-production equipment. The project is also being designed around a closed-loop process intended to reuse water and reduce overall consumption. It’s a non-potable source for any use, including drinking, agriculture and irrigation.
That distinction matters.

Northern New Mexico should absolutely protect the water people depend upon. At the same time, we should be willing to ask whether a relatively small amount of non-potable water can be responsibly put to work for a public purpose—helping create stored energy that can be available during emergencies.

The current estimate for hydrogen production is approximately 47 to 50 acre-feet per year. Additional water is contemplated for fire suppression and dust control, with a proposed aggregate water-right amount of up to 70 acre-feet. Engineers are also evaluating water reuse that could further reduce the amount needed for hydrogen production and wildfire mitigation efforts.

And this is not a proposal to simply drill a new shallow well next to an acequia.

The existing production well draws from a deep groundwater zone. Its producing interval begins more than 400 feet below the surface, and the upper portion of the well is sealed with cement and bentonite to isolate the deeper producing zone from shallower groundwater.

Respected geohydrological experts have examined the geology, groundwater elevations, boreholes, hundreds of surrounding wells and water-right records, and the relationship between this deeper source and nearby acequias. Their work indicates that most surrounding wells are considerably shallower than the project well and that geological layers can limit communication between those groundwater zones.

The technical team is continuing its numerical groundwater modeling because there are questions that deserve further evaluation. We should not claim certainty before that work is finished.

We should also recognize what has already been done.

The water rights associated with the proposed source are existing, adjudicated Chevron water rights. Former New Mexico State Engineer John D’Antonio has advised KCEC on the water-rights process, and the State Engineer previously evaluated pumping from this point of diversion. Any change in the authorized purpose of use must still proceed through New Mexico’s water-rights process, including review for potential impairment of existing water rights.

That process exists for a reason. We respect it.
But we also need perspective.

We are talking about using non-potable water, subject to engineering analysis and regulatory review, to help create an energy resource intended to protect the very communities asking us to prepare for wildfire, severe weather and extended outages.

That is a tradeoff worth examining seriously.
What are we protecting?

Ultimately, the reason to explore long-duration energy storage isn’t a technology.
It’s people.
It’s the older resident who relies on electrically powered medical equipment.
It’s the family that needs to keep medication refrigerated during an extended outage.
It’s the volunteer firefighter who needs communications and functioning infrastructure while responding to a wildfire.

It’s the health clinic, school, emergency responder, water system and small business that depend on reliable electricity.

And it’s the linemen who may be working through difficult terrain, smoke, wind or dangerous conditions to restore a damaged transmission line.

Imagine a wildfire or severe storm interrupts the transmission system serving one of our communities.
Instead of having only one option—waiting until that line can safely be repaired—we want our communities to have another layer of protection: locally produced renewable energy backed by storage that can help keep essential electricity available.

That is why the water question and the resilience question cannot be discussed as though they have nothing to do with one another.

We should ask how much water the project requires. We should ask where it comes from. We should study whether its use could affect existing water-right holders. We should require the project to follow New Mexico’s regulatory process.

And then we should ask another question:
What can that water do for our community?

If non-potable water can be responsibly used to store locally produced renewable energy, strengthen our response to wildfire and help keep electricity available for vulnerable residents during an emergency, that public benefit deserves to be part of the conversation too.

Wildfire risk is not going away. Extreme weather is not going away. Electricity demand is growing. And Northern New Mexico will remain rural, mountainous and geographically challenging.

We can prepare for those realities.
For Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, resilience means reducing wildfire risk, strengthening our infrastructure, expanding renewable generation and exploring ways to store that energy for the hours—and potentially days—when our communities need it most.

Because keeping the lights on isn’t just about electricity.
In rural Northern New Mexico, keeping the lights on is part of keeping our communities safe.