One-on-One: Jim DesJardins, renewable energy champion

From desktops to cell phones to renewable energy, Jim DesJardins has always been involved in fields of what he calls “disruptors.”

He’s now the executive director for the Renewable Energy Industries Association of New Mexico.

Hailing from Chicago, he moved to Albuquerque partly because he got a job at Affordable Solar. Now, his wife says they’ll never leave.

Before coming to Albuquerque, he worked for Habitat for Humanity in Bangladesh and for the U.S. Embassy in Cabo Verde, “a little island country off the coast of West Africa.”

Also important to him is where he came from; his father was a professional engineer and his mother, in addition to homemaking, was very involved in political organizing and early parts of the disability movement.

“So that’s certainly influenced me,” JesDardins said, tearing up — his mother died just a year ago.

From working on computers before people even knew what Microsoft was to championing a transition to renewable energy, DesJardins, 67, hopes to retire after REIA-NM.

“There's a lot of comparisons I see to what's going on now and the solar movement to then, because it was a disruptor,” he said.

What is the Renewable Energy Industries Association of New Mexico?

“We are a trade association of renewable energy, part of companies engaged in the renewable energy space. Founded in 2004 by I think it was four people, and two of those people are still members. And we are now about over 60 members.

And as the industry has grown, more people are involved in it. So originally, we were basically just companies doing rooftop solar, primarily residential, maybe a small commercial job. In 2021 the Community Solar Act passed, and so all of a sudden, we got on the radar screen of community solar companies all over the country. And so we have a lot of those members.

And then the other type of company organization that we now have are people who are engineering firms, law firms, New Mexico State University is a member, Nusenda Credit Union’s a member.

So you know, people or companies, or maybe not even companies — not-for-profits or universities or whatever — that have interest in the renewable energy space are members as well. …

Our mission is to support, promote and advance the transition to renewable energy in New Mexico. And (there are) three different major ways we do that: We work at the Public Regulation Commission, we work at the state Legislature and we also are engaged with government entities like the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department of the state of New Mexico, cities like Albuquerque, Santa Fe counties, etc., all to advance policies favorable to our industry.”

How does renewable energy fit in a place like New Mexico?

“Why is New Mexico great for renewables? Well, I'll tell you why.

For the same reason why New Mexico is great for oil and gas, and that is because we have that type of energy here. The difference is, our energy is above ground. You don't have to dig for it. You don't have to go through a whole lot of stuff to get it. It's there; it comes for free.

New Mexico has the second best solar access in the country. So I teach a class in solar, and people will say, ‘Oh, solar doesn't work here, doesn't work there.’ Solar works everywhere there’s the sun, and that's the whole world.

Now, some places, it works better than others. So for example, where I used to live in Chicago, (the) same size solar system that you have in Albuquerque would produce 25% more than a system of similar size in Chicago. That doesn't mean it's not good to have it in Chicago. Just means it's better to have it here.

And therefore it's more cost-effective here because there's simply more sun here and more energy created by a solar system.

Also for wind — the eastern part of the state has a lot of wind, and so there's a lot of development there.

And then adding to that, there's a lot of land in New Mexico. (And) by the way, a lot of it's flat; developers like flat land. So I think there's a lot of opportunities to take advantage of those resources that we have for renewable.”

What kinds of challenges do you see in the deployment of renewables?

“Let me just start out with, we have in the United States what's been referred to as the largest and most complex machine ever built, and that's the United States grid. And our industry is in the process of disrupting how that has been working for about 100-something years. And so three major things are happening simultaneously.

So No. 1 is, we're actually, for the first time in decades, we're substantially increasing our load — in other words, the amount of electricity that we're using. That's happening with electric vehicles, … building electrification, so people transitioning from using gas as a source for heat to heat pumps, electric heat pump water heaters, … data centers. …

No. 2, we're transitioning from base-load type of resources — coal, natural gas — to renewables, and what makes renewables unique to those others is that they're variable resources. We can't control when they're going to output energy.

You know, when the sun is there, it's there. If it's a cloudy day, it's going to put out less. If it's not a windy day, the wind resources put out less. … And we're at a point where, because we're putting in so many variable resources, wind and solar, we're going to have to … pair those resources with some kind of way to store the energy when they're generating too much and then be able to dispatch it when we don't have enough.

So we got those two things happening, and then the third thing that's happening — and this is the big point of disruption, I would say, for utilities — is that you can now generate your own energy at your home and business. Fifty thousand homes and businesses generate their own energy (in New Mexico); 5 million in the United States. So you’ve got that.

And then we have community solar, which is kind of like a hybrid of that. So you’ve got all that going on. So the utility industry, which has been stagnant, … we need to work with them. So I often tell people, … they're our friends. They just need a little help from us. They might not always want that help, but we need to all work together to make this transition as best as possible.”

You've been in New Mexico now for 16 years. What do you like about it? What don't you like?

“I don't know if there's anything that I don't like.

Not that I went to a lot of Cubs games or White Sox games, but it was nice to know there was one there (in Chicago). I could go to a Bears game, you know. So no professional sports team; it's not a huge deal. Just being at the kind of the center of stuff … I do miss that. … You know, every place has its pros and cons.

New Mexico is a good place. And, you know, just kind of tying that in, New Mexico is a good place as I think there's going to be a lot of opportunities in our industry, and we can really lead the way in certain aspects. …”

What are your hobbies?

“I'm a runner. … I've been running for 47 years, so running, biking and hiking. … Hiking is definitely a boon here, as opposed to Chicago, and cycling, Chicago has a nice lakefront, so you can do some good cycling.”

Any pet peeves?

“I try not to have pet peeves. None that come to mind.”

Do you have any personal or professional goals that you strive to achieve?

“Well, being that my next job is probably going to be social security, because I'm 67 years old, ideally, this is it.

And so as long as I enjoy the position I have, and I feel like making a difference, and as long as other people think I'm doing good things — because I work for the membership, accountable to the board of directors — this is what I'm going to do.”

We're gearing up for a 60-day Legislature pretty soon. Do you have any thoughts or goals for next year?

“Just kind of tying into what I had talked about (with) the need to couple energy storage with solar, there's an energy storage bill that we've been involved in for the last three or four years that I think it's going to happen again. And that would provide an incentive, through a tax credit, for people to couple energy storage with their solar systems. So that's something we're very interested in.

Related to that … taking those 50,000 solar systems that are currently installed in New Mexico — now, unfortunately, 1% of those have energy storage coupled with them. National average is somewhere in the low teens. California is over 50%. … If we had all 50,000 coupled with energy storage, and imagine we could network those. … So think 100 degree day in the end of June, grid is maxed out; if you could call on those systems to dispatch energy to the grid. So in other words, they actually become part of the grid, just like when you have your laptop and you're on the internet, you're literally the part of a, quote, world wide web. …

There are some people meeting looking at a bill to improve the distribution system. … In certain parts of PNM’s system, you can't install solar.. … There's a lot of work that needs to be done on the distribution system. …

There's one other big one, and that's the concept of cost causation. So right now, if you want to put a solar system on your house, and you happen to be the fortunate — or actually unfortunate — person that your solar system is now going to trigger the need to have a bigger transformer in your subdivision, you get to pay all the costs for that transformer, even though people behind you … are thinking about it. …

So that's obviously not a fair way to distribute the cost of improving or putting in a new transformer, but on a much bigger scale, that happens for community solar. … Not only is it not equitable and fair, it's just not efficient, and it's going to cause us to not be able to install systems fast enough.

And the one big overarching thing of all this is the climate change clock keeps ticking. So as we wait and try to do business as normal and go through our slow processes of doing things, again, the climate change clock keeps ticking.”

Red or green?

“I'm a green person, but I'm good with the red people.”