News Release

July 1, 2002

PNM Adopts Technology To Reduce Outage Time

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NEWS MEDIA CONTACT Susan Sponar Telephone: (505) 241-2768

Albuquerque: PNM has adopted technology to reduce both the number and length of electrical outages. In fact, the technology has reduced the duration of outages in the Albuquerque metro area by almost 50 percent. In 1991-’94, Albuquerque customers experienced an average of 80.43 minutes a year without electricity. In 1998-’00, that number had dropped to an annual average of 44.33 minutes.

The technologies automate key elements of the PNM electric distribution system, which is the part of the power system that delivers electricity from substations to homes and businesses. One of the improvements, known as SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition), allows remote monitoring and control of field equipment. By monitoring voltage, current, temperature and pressure, operators and field personnel can assess problems accurately. From PNM’s main service center, operators can reroute electricity from other locations when a problem occurs so that customers still have power while repairs are completed.

Using some of the 142 newly installed SCADAMATE switches, operators can now restore half of the affected customers on a feeder in under five minutes. Normally it takes at least an hour to locate, isolate the problem and restore power. PNM plans to install and activate a total of 400 of these remote control switches.

The TMS system (Trouble Management System) allows PNM to manage outages down to the individual service level—an individual home or business. Because each service is associated with a specific transformer, when an outage call is received from a customer, TMs lets operators quickly identify the location and scope of the outage, and dispatch crews accordingly.

Both SCADA and TMs are operated out of the PNM’s Distribution Operations Center, a "command post" of sorts, which is staffed 24 hours a day. This is where expert operators make split-second decisions that send crews to the right place with the right equipment. PNM recently built a new Distribution Operations Center, a move that will accommodate continued upgrades, including taking the SCADA and TMs systems statewide in the near future.

PNM is a combined electric and gas utility serving approximately 1.3 million people in New Mexico. The company, a wholly owned subsidiary of PNM Resources, also sells power on the wholesale market in the Western U.S. PNM Resources stock is traded primarily on the NYSE under the symbol PNM.