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Southern New Mexico city sets clean energy goals

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — One southern New Mexico city wants to get all of its electricity from clean energy sources by 2050. Las Cruces city councilors voted in favor of the resolution Monday. The measure includes benchmarks for city government to derive 25 percent of its power needs from renewable energy by 2022 and 50 percent by 2030. However, it doesn't specify how the city should go about achieving the goals. The Las Cruces Sun-News reports the city currently pays for much of its electricity from El Paso Electric Co. and gets some power from city-owned facilities that have had solar panels installed in recent years. The city has eight solar-generating installations, producing about 2.1 million kilowatt hours of power yearly. To reach the first step of the new goal, it will have to produce 9.15 million kilowatt-hours.