Martin Heinrich

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich on Monday introduced a bill in Congress that he says will require large electricity users such as data centers to pay for upgrades to the electric grid.

In a statement, the New Mexico Democrat said the GRID Savings Act makes sure “America can meet growing electricity demand without forcing working families and small businesses to fully subsidize the infrastructure required by the nation’s biggest energy users.”

The bill would require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — a board of five presidential appointees who regulate interstate transmission — to establish rules on what grid upgrades large power users would ultimately pay.

Data centers have been a hot button issue in New Mexico and across the nation. In New Mexico, Santa Fe, Socorro and Sierra counties have passed bans and moratoriums on hyperscalers.

In Doña Ana County, Oracle and OpenAI are aiming to build the Project Jupiter data center with a 2.45-gigawatt microgrid powered by fuel cells that use natural gas. That’s close to the power supply of the entire electric grid of the state’s largest utility, Public Service Company of New Mexico.

Microgrids are like islands of electricity generation that can operate outside the larger grids of utilities. Even so, they often still need to build transmission lines and connections to those larger utility grids. Heinrich’s legislation proposes that they pay for those interconnections and associated upgrades.

Heinrich on Monday said on a Politico podcast that he is “not a fan of the moratorium approach, because that will simply push (data centers) to the places with the lowest standards — and we don’t want a race to the bottom.”

“I’m of the approach of (setting) good standards,” Heinrich said on the podcast. “Make sure you’re bringing good union jobs to a community. Make sure you’re respecting water. Make sure you’re actually being transparent to a community and bringing economic value, including giving people relief from their overly high utility bills right now.”

In 2024, New Mexico ranked lowest among states in average monthly residential electric bills, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The average monthly bill for New Mexico was $92.88. The national average was roughly $142.

New Mexico ranked 38th in electricity consumption and 29th in electricity prices per kilowatt hour, according to the EIA. That indicates bills in the state are low in part because New Mexicans do not consume as much electricity as residents of other states.

The bill allows large power users — which it defines as using 150 or more megawatts — to voluntarily fund transmission lines and associated equipment to receive transmission service.

Eric Chavez, a spokesperson for TXNM, the parent of PNM, said the company agrees with Heinrich that new large electricity users need to cover any incremental costs they are adding to the grid and pay for a share of the existing system.

“We are 100% committed to protecting our customers and we are working on developing a special rate, also known as a large load tariff, to do just that,” Chavez said.