New Mexico’s gusty eastern plains could produce electricity for millions of homes, but a transmission bottleneck has slowed wind-farm development to a crawl.

“New Mexico has substantial ability to develop and produce renewable energy, but the local market is small, and we need transmission lines to get that electricity to markets in other states that need it,” said Jeremy Turner, executive director of New Mexico’s Renewable Energy Transmission Authority. “It’s a real bottleneck.”

The Tres Amigas Superstation being planned near Clovis would allow generating stations in Texas and the eastern U.S. to send electricity for the first time to western markets. But... [continue via Web link]