Arizona renewable energy referendum meets signature requirement

Posted on by cannasolar

Now that a random 5% signature sample verification has been mathematically achieved, the only thing standing between the initiative and voters in November is the lawsuit it faces.

 

Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona’s (CEHA) embattled initiative to impose a 50% by 2030 renewable energy mandate has passed another one of the hurdles standing between it and it’s place on the November ballot.

On Wednesday, the office of Arizona Secretary of State Michelle Reagan released the results of the office’s random 5 percent sample of signatures. The review found that over 70% of the signatures reviewed were valid, representing 16,146 of the 22,722 collected. Though the results of Yuma County have not yet been reported, the bill has reached the mathematical requirement to move on.

Furthermore, with the exceptions of Apache, Maricopa and Mohave counties, no county fell below 75% validity, which is funny, considering the utility front group challenging the signatures’ validity, Arizonans for Affordable Electricity (AAE), claimed that same 75% to be the amount of fraudulent signatures.

An important distinction to be made here is that invalid does not mean fraudulent. Invalid signatures could very well just be incomplete or ones that were filled out improperly.

These allegations will still see their day in court, as the two sides will meet before Judge Daniel Kiley on Monday, per AAE’s original lawsuit. With this ballot verification, it would be surprising if CEHA were to lose the case.

The lawsuit should be the final hurdle standing between the renewable energy initiative and the November ballot. Speaking of hurdles, AAE has put so many in front of the initiative previously, that it may qualify for the Olympics, too. The group has previously alleged that CEHA’s signature collection fleet was comprised of violent criminals and at least one Russian spy. AEE has utilized Twitter as an outlet, painting the main backer of CEHA, Tom Steyer, as a “California billionaire” solely hell-bent on raising the taxes of Arizona citizens, with their #StayOutSteyer campaign.

The other pending renewable energy proposal, Commissioner Andy Tobin of the Arizona Corporation Commission’s 80% “clean energy” by 2050 goal, has not received nearly the opposition from AAE that CEHA has. Before going into why, it’s important to remember where AAE gets a significant portion of their funding from.

So why would Arizona Public Service prefer one renewable energy effort over another? Well, for starters, we at pv magazine are not clear that Commissioner Tobin’s proposal is a mandate; as the documentation repeatedly refers to the clean energy targets as “goals”, and does not specify any structure for penalties (such as alternative compliance payments in renewable portfolio standard policies) for not reaching these goals. This could means that unlike the mandatory language of the 50% by 2030 initiative and other renewable portfolio standard policies, utilities would not necessarily any mechanism holding them accountable should they fall behind in their transition to clean energy.

The CEHA initiative also calls for 10% of the total 50% renewable energy to be generated from distributed energy resources. Like other utilities APS has long treated distributed, customer- and third-party owned solar as a threat to its business model and revenues. Commissioner Tobin’s plan also includes nuclear power generation under the blanket of clean energy, while CEHA’s RPS does not. This means under Tobin’s proposal the 3.3 GW Palo Verde nuclear power plant, partially owned by APS and the largest in the nation, would receive incentives based on its output. Under the 50% by 2030 proposal it would not.

The tactics that have been used to fight CEHA’s RPS initiative come as no surprise, since Arizona and the Arizona Corporation Commission are known for having incredibly dirty politics. In this case, there is hope. If the RPS initiative survives its court date, it will head to the ballot, putting the future of Arizona Energy in the hands of the voters. And here it is worth note that the 480,464 signatures the initiative collected represent 7% of the state’s overall population.

 

This article was originally published on   of http://www.pv-magazine.com

 

Arizona Utility APS’s Real Plan: Fossil Fuels Forever

Posted on by cannasolar
Arizona’s biggest investor-owned electric utility, Arizona Public Service (APS), wants to lock the state into a fossil-fuel-based future, even though there is a clean, reliable energy option that would lower electric bills, reduce health-harming emissions, and create thousands of jobs. APS is vociferously opposing the Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona ballot measure, which would require utilities to get 50 percent of their electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind by 2030. The likely reason: APS wants to build a bunch of new gas-fired power plants, and they will make less money in a world where the ballot measure passes and their dirty-energy-building-boom no longer makes sense.

We know APS’s plans because they filed a detailed proposal — called an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) — at the Arizona Corporation Commission last year. In the IRP process, Arizona utilities map out how they will meet customers’ electricity needs over the next 15 years.

APS proposed no new large-scale solar plants in its plan. This is shocking. The plan covers the next fifteen years, Arizona generates just six percent of its electricity from solar, and solar costs so little in Arizona. Instead of building renewables, the utility proposed a massive, multi-billion-dollar build-out of fossil fuel-fired power plants: 2,000 Megawatts of gas combined cycle units (which are designed to operate around-the-clock), and 3,500 Megawatts of gas combustion turbine units (which are designed to meet peak needs). This building boom would increase gas-fired power plant capacity substantially, from 57 percent of total capacity today to 66 percent in 2032, and substantially increase APS’s use of fossil fuels. Use of coal and gas for energy production would increase by 40 percent between 2017 and 2032.

APS wants to meet Arizona’s future electricity needs almost exclusively with fossil fuels

In the plan, gas-fired resources account for 99.7 percent of APS’s new electricity generation, and large-scale solar is absent. The utility does not plan to build any new utility-scale renewable energy power plants (there’s just one, small wind contract extension). APS’s plan also cuts energy efficiency programs in half, and they propose just a small amount of energy storage.

In contrast to APS’s “fossil fuels forever” plan, a 50 percent renewable energy future can meet Arizona’s electricity needs at lower cost and risk than APS’s plan, with big environmental benefits. Modelling of a renewable energy future conducted by the research firm ICF for NRDC finds that 50 percent of the state’s electricity needs can be reliably met by renewable energy by 2030. A 50 percent renewable portfolio standard would lead to the development of 5,320 Megawatts of solar capacity by 2030.

Building those new solar power plants would create jobs, and take away the need for any new gas plants and the out-of-state fuel they require. Our modeling — described here — suggests the renewable energy future would reduce energy infrastructure costs by $4.1 billion between 2020 and 2040 and reduce energy bills, because new renewables are cheaper than unneeded gas plants.

APS spends a lot of time talking about the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. But they are just trying to confuse people. Their real plan is all fossil fuels, all the time. A renewable energy future would be better for Arizona’s economy and environment.

Posted: August 21, 2018

Originally posted on the Natural Resources Defense Council website.