Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM), the Albuquerque-headquartered electric utility owned by TXNM Energy, began installing smart meters in September 2026 under a $185 million, two-and-a-half-year program. The utility plans to replace more than 560,000 meters across the state by the end of 2028, starting in southeast Albuquerque, the Albuquerque Journal reported on 26 September 2026.
The launch follows weeks of complaints about estimated and unusually high bills, which PNM has attributed to a shortage of manual meter readers. It also comes after a summer in which the utility set an all-time system peak of 2,264 megawatts.
Itron Gen 5 Riva Meters, Deployed Region By Region
About 290 customers already have the new meters for system validation. After southeast Albuquerque this fall, the rollout moves to the southwest territory around Silver City, Deming and Lordsburg in spring 2027, then to Alamogordo and Ruidoso later that year.
The published sequence does not yet assign dates to Santa Fe, Rio Rancho, Las Vegas or the eight tribal communities in PNM’s service area, all of which fall within the end-2028 completion target.
PNM is installing Gen 5 Riva meters from Itron, the same vendor it selected for OpenWay Riva in January 2017. The Journal reports that the devices can map themselves to grid equipment, detect rooftop solar and electric vehicle chargers behind the meter, and flag overloaded transformers.
Neither PNM nor Itron has disclosed the contract value, the communications network, the meter data management system or the installation contractor. The only other platform named in regulatory filings is TIBCO, which supplies the data architecture.
Customers receive notices 90, 60 and 30 days before installation. PNM says it committed in its 2022 filing not to lay off its roughly 100 full-time and temporary meter readers, and contractors are currently filling gaps in that workforce.
Estimated Bills And A Record Peak Preceded The Launch
In early September, Mark Hayden, director of the Utilities Unit at the New Mexico Department of Justice under Attorney General Raúl Torrez, sent PNM a letter citing at least 16 complaints about estimated readings and unusually high bills. The letter asked for a response by 23 September, according to the Journal, and no reply has been reported publicly.
Residents of Alamogordo reported bills above $800 after estimated billing between 21 July and early August 2026. PNM has since waived late fees, suspended disconnections, offered payment extensions and committed to true-up bills once actual usage is read.
Demand compounded the problem. PNM reached 2,264 megawatts at 5 p.m. on 3 August 2026, about 6% above its previous record of 2,136 megawatts set in July 2023, the Journal reported.
Eight Years From Rejection To Approval
PNM’s first advanced metering application, Case 15-00312-UT, sought $95.1 million to replace about 531,000 meters. A hearing examiner recommended rejection in March 2018 after finding a 20-year net present value benefit of only $16.1 million, and the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (NMPRC) unanimously rejected the plan the following month.
The 2020 Energy Grid Modernization Roadmap Act then created a rider mechanism for grid modernization costs. PNM filed Case 22-00058-UT on 3 October 2022, seeking $344 million over six years, of which advanced metering accounted for $171 million, according to Renewable Energy World.
The NMPRC approved the plan on 17 October 2024. It set the monthly opt-out fee at $9.95, far below the $28.31 PNM had requested, and reserved the right to revisit the fee in the utility’s next rate case, the Journal reported at the time.
“We are pleased with today’s approval and are looking forward to bringing new energy management capabilities to PNM customers,” said Pat Vincent-Collawn, then Chairman and CEO of TXNM Energy, in the company’s October 2024 press release.
The $185 million and 560,000-meter figures now cited differ from the $171 million and approximately 550,000 meters in PNM’s 2024 customer materials. The outcome of the first annual review of updated cost estimates, Case 25-00049-UT, has not been published.
Cost Recovery Runs Through An Annual Rider
PNM recovers the investment through a Grid Modernization Rider that the NMPRC reviews each year. The utility tells customers there is no upfront charge, but it has not published the current monthly rider amount, having proposed a residential impact of $1.20 a month when it filed in 2022.
The rider sits on top of base rates that rose by about $6.23 a month for the average residential customer on 1 April 2026. That increase was the second step of the rate case approved in 2025.
TXNM is also awaiting NMPRC approval of its approximately $11.5 billion acquisition by Blackstone Infrastructure, with Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval also still pending. In mid-September 2026 the companies raised proposed residential rate credits to $220 million from $105 million.
Southwest Peers Finished First
Neighboring El Paso Electric had installed about 533,000 Itron meters at a cost of $141 million and was 99.9% complete as of May 2026. Those are figures supplied by its owner’s representative, Black & Veatch.
Nationally, US utilities had about 119 million advanced meters in 2022, equal to roughly 72% of all electric meters, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That places PNM among the later large investor-owned utilities to begin a full deployment.
Itron has supplied comparable programs elsewhere, including Xcel Energy’s 200,000-meter rollout in the Dakotas. Xcel’s Southwestern Public Service subsidiary completed its own New Mexico installations between 2022 and 2023.
