Renewable Energy

New Mexico is blessed with enormous renewable energy resource potential. Wind, sunshine, abundant geothermal resources, and technical research institutes put our state at the forefront of generating renewable energy and developing new technologies to optimize this re-occurring resource. As the former land commissioner, Powell championed the development of renewable energy development on Trust Lands. During his last term he collaborated with the Public Service Company of New Mexico and Florida Power and Light to establish the first wind farms on the eastern plains of New Mexico.

The reality is that New Mexico has an even greater abundance of renewable energy resources such as solar, wind, geothermal and biomass on Trust Land than those of the non-renewable kind such as oil, gas, and coal. By developing these low-impact uses on the land now, the land office can position the Trust to provide future revenues for our schools, provide jobs in local communities and help our agricultural producers succeed while protecting this unique and special place we call home.

Sandia Science & Technology Park

Powell worked with Sandia Labs, the City of Albuquerque, Albuquerque Public Schools, and Build New Mexico to establish the Sandia Science and Technology Park in Albuquerque. He helped Emcore Corporation, one of the first tenants of the park, stay in New Mexico by providing venture capital from the Land Grant Permanent Fund and 10 acres of trust land for lease.

Emcore is a company whose chief executive worked at Sandia National Labs and invented new technologies to enhance solar panels on orbiting satellites. He was committed to stay in New Mexico if he could find a way to do it. By working in partnership with others Ray Powell made sure that we found a way! This resulted in additional revenue for our school children and hundreds of new and good paying jobs for New Mexicans. This model can be repeated.

Powell provided leases on trust land for innovative entrepreneurs to establish new companies that utilized geothermal energy to heat their operations-one example was a fish farm in southwestern New Mexico.