> Republicans expanded their majority on the utility commission to 4-1 in 2022 and have taken steps since then to reverse clean energy mandates. Most recently, the panel voted 4-1 to sunset rules that required regulated utilities to set energy efficiency requirements and get 15 percent of their energy from renewable resources by 2025.
> This story is also a good illustration of why local government matters. National races get most of the media attention, but your personal day-to-day is more affected by your local government.
Arizona is getting what it voted for. At the generation capacity amounts needed to replace fossil generation (a handful of GWs, 15k-20k acres of leased land assuming ~4.5k-5k acres per GW of solar capacity) [3], this is simply a lack of desire and will. Someone else in the thread mentioned peaker plants; utility scale batteries are cheaper than peakers in most (but not all) cases [4] [5].
[1] https://www.politico.com/newsletters/power-switch/2024/02/12...
[2] https://www.eenews.net/articles/can-arizona-revive-its-bipar...
[3] https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/US-SW-AZPS?wind=false&s...
[4] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/04/12/battery-storage-syste...
[5] https://www.cesa.org/replacing-fossil-fueled-peaker-power-pl...