Arizona Public Service maintains path to clean energy commitment despite COVID-19 outbreak

A year has passed since Arizona Public Service (APS) pledged to reach 100 percent clean, carbon-free energy by 2050, and the company has noted continued progress along that path despite the immediate hurdles caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

To keep on track, APS has set an interim clean energy commitment of making its resource mix 65 percent clean by 2030 and to end coal use outright by 2031. This past year, efforts included the continued operation of the nation’s largest energy producer: Palo Verde Generating Station, which churned out nuclear power even during the hottest Arizona summer on record. It also added more than 400 MW of clean energy resources and issued a request for proposal to acquire more battery storage to tack approximately 1-1.5 GW of new resources onto solar generation.

“We are serious about our clean energy commitment,” APS Chairman and CEO Jeff Guldner said. “If we can work together on the best policies, technologies, and pathways to follow, the real economic and environmental benefits for our state will be worthwhile in ways we can only imagine today. It won’t always be an easy path to travel, perhaps, but it always will be a path worth taking.”

So far, the APS energy mix is already 50 percent clean. Last year, the company also proposed a coal communities transition plan to support those areas currently hosting coal-fired power stations. If approved by state regulators, it would funnel $144 million to communities around the Four Corners and Cholla power plants to modernize and diversify. Energy efficiency programs, like the dispersal of Google Nest Thermostats, have also been launched. At the same time, APS collaborates with other industries to install and maintain electric vehicle charging equipment more affordable and build more charging infrastructure in general.