Canto
Salt River Project (SRP) is one of Arizona’s primary public utilities and serves portions of the Phoenix metro area. SRP’s status as a public utility means it has enhanced social responsibility when it comes to providing services for customers – there are no shareholders to serve as there are with investor-owned utilities, only the customers and the public. Unfortunately, SRP and its board are not embracing their special role as a public entity and continue to insist on pushing and investing in new fossil gas generation. When burned, fossil gas releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the air and there is also methane leakage throughout the process. Methane is a volatile organic compound, and greenhouse gas that is many times more powerful than carbon dioxide, polluting our planet and contributing to one million premature deaths every year.
Earlier this year, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) denied a certificate of environmental compatibility for SRP’s proposed 820 megawatt, nearly $1 billion expansion of the Coolidge Generating Station. SRP wanted to add 16 new gas-powered turbines to the existing gas plant located next to the historic Black community of Randolph. Residents fought to have their voices heard to stop this expansion that would have added more harmful pollution and noise to their hometown. Now SRP is suing to reverse the ACC’s decision. SRP had already purchased several gas turbines for the Coolidge expansion project, but now plans to locate some of those gas generators to other sites, including SRP’s existing Copper Crossing solar facility. SRP proposes to site the gas turbines in smaller configurations of less than 100 megawatts in order to avoid oversight by the ACC.
In hopes of steering SRP in a new direction, a diverse coalition of clean energy advocates, along with faith and community leaders, presented the People’s Energy Plan to SRP on October 3rd. This plan is the result of direct feedback from community members and leaders who have firmly voiced what they would like to see from SRP in its resource planning process, known as an Integrated System Plan. After all, SRP is a public utility that should be doing what’s best for its customers by supplying goods and services that are essential, like water and power. What’s best for the People and customers is for SRP to provide clean, reliable, and cost-effective energy that doesn’t harm our health and environment.
The People’s Energy Plan lays it all out for SRP – it is a comprehensive and detailed alternative resource plan modeled by Strategen, a consulting firm that focuses on decarbonizing energy systems, that shows how SRP can commit to clean, renewable energy, stop investing in new gas, and save customers millions of dollars while providing reliable energy. SRP frequently defends its investments in costly and dirty gas, claiming they are necessary in order to provide reliability to customers and to ease the transition to more renewables. During a September 12th board meeting, Kelly Barr, Chief Strategy, Corporate Services and Sustainability Executive at SRP, even tried to bash solar power as not being reliable enough, suggesting that any time a cloud passed overhead, ratepayers would be left in the dark. This is simply untrue as Ultraviolet rays are absorbed by solar panels even on cloudy days, which supplement the 300+ sunny days Arizona sees a year. When paired with utility-scale battery storage, solar is reliable, renewable, and a constant source of clean energy. What is unreliable is the misinformation being spread about solar power by a person in a prominent leadership position at a public utility company who should know better.
Recently, SRP scored an F in The Dirty Truth About Climate Pledges, a report that examines utilities’ performance on retiring existing coal plants by 2030. SRP earned a failing grade for the way it has delayed the transition to clean energy from coal and gas that poisons the air, threatens public health, and exacerbates the climate crisis. While promising emissions reductions and community engagement, SRP has instead delivered a lack of transparency, a continued reliance on dirty fossil fuels, and a lack of accountability - and people are fed up!
SRP can clearly do better. The People’s Energy Plan modeling finds that not only is the expansion of the Coolidge gas plant not a part of a least-cost portfolio, but that an earlier retirement and replacement of SRP’s coal-fired generating units with clean energy would save SRP customers $620 million and avoid 43 million tons of cumulative CO2 emissions. Even higher savings and reduced emissions are possible with new federal support that is part of the Inflation Reduction Act. Furthermore, SRP’s current 2035 sustainability goals don’t drive any new incremental emissions reductions, and are readily achieved by their previously announced coal retirements.
While our coalition was promoting this clean energy vision in early October, SRP was busy censuring some of its board members for supporting clean energy. Why is SRP so set on propping up gas, a fossil fuel that has quadrupled in price over the last two years? Why punish elected board members who support a better path to reliable energy that benefits Arizonans? Why continue to spread a false narrative about renewable energy? A clean energy future is long overdue. Arizona deserves a People’s Energy Plan now, and SRP has a responsibility to enact that.
We will continue to push SRP to do what’s right - we deserve a People’s Energy Plan!