Istock. Photography, Beyond Coal Arizona
Tuscon Electric Power (TEP) and its parent company, (Canada's largest investor-owned gas and electric utility company) UNS Energy Corporation, are subsidiaries of Fortis Inc. Fortis owns utilities that serve more than 3 million customers across Canada and in the United States and the Caribbean. TEP provides electric service to over 414,000 southern Arizona customers.
TEP's Integrated Resource Plan will reduce the company's coal-fired generating capacity by more than 30 percent and greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent over the course of five years. "Eliminating the local use of coal is an important part of our plan to build a cleaner, more diverse energy portfolio," said David G. Hutchens, TEP's President and Chief Executive Officer. The H. Wilson Sundt Generating Station, a 173 MW coal plant, is the largest such facility in Tucson, Arizona. A 2010 study by the Clean Air Task Force showed the burning of coal at Sundt causes approximately 68 asthma attacks, 6 heart attacks and 4 deaths every year. Built in 1967, the Sundt plant ranked 13th worst in the NAACP’s environmental justice performance ranking.
Pictured above, with the H. Wilson Sundt plant in the background, activists gather on Mother's Day 2014 to protest the utility's harmful practices.
TEP released a statement last month describing plant operations and detailing their Integrated Resource Plan. This announcement comes two years before the date in December which the company and the EPA agreed upon. The plant was found by the agency to be out of compliance with the Clean Air Act in 2013. The following year, TEP agreed to burn exclusively natural gas by the December 31 deadline as an alernative to installing emissions controls to limit regional haze. This move helps Pima County comply with soon to be updated ozone standards and will aid in meeting 2022 Clean Power Plan requirements.
Find more photos of clean energy activism in Tucson by googling: #SolNotCoal
This exciting development has been made possible by the efforts of many wonderful volunteers and organizations, including but not limited to: Tierra Y Libertad; Coalición de Derechos Humanos; NAACP; Union of Concerned Scientists; Physicians for Social Responsibility; Tucson Climate Action Network; National Parks Conservation Association; Earthjustice, and 350.org.
Thanks be to the following Sierra Club members, all of whom were instrumental in this joyous event: Grand Canyon Chapter Director, Sandy Bahr and Chapter Organizer, Dan Millis; attorneys in the law program, Gloria Smith and Travis Ritchie; and leadership of the Beyond Coal Campaign, including Bill Corcoran.