Arizona Capitol Times Your Inside Source for Arizona Government, Politics and Business

With a renewable energy initiative ready to be filed next week, a state utility regulator is filing his own proposal, one that electric companies are likely to find more attractive.

The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station is the nation’s largest power producer, and if the Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona initiative appears on the ballot in November, voters will decide the plant’s future.

Afraid that voters might like a renewable energy mandate, the state's largest utility is working with lawmakers to put its own alternative on the November ballot.

State senators voted Wednesday to give utilities a way to avoid having to get half their electricity from renewable sources by 2030 even if voters mandate that they do so.

Bill Scheel, a campaign consultant helping set up the petition drive, said Monday there is a coalition of civic and health organizations who do not believe the current renewable energy standard goals set by the Arizona Corporation Commission are sufficient.

Arizona Corporation Commissioner Andy Tobin released a plan January 30 that calls for increases in clean energy, energy storage and biomass.

Navajo leaders expressed hope October 2 that the Navajo Generating Station will be able to continue operations past 2019, after Peabody Energy said it had come up with a list of potential investors in the plant.

The Navajo Nation Council has approved a lease extension to allow a coal-fired power plant in northeastern Arizona to continue operating through December 2019.

More options to encourage the efficient consumption of power have emerged as energy resources in the Valley evolved over the past decade.

States that generate large amounts of renewable energy, such as California with its abundant supply of solar power, have to “sell” power to neighboring states at negative prices, meaning California is effectively paying Arizona to take energy from their systems.