Providing reliable, affordable and increasingly clean energy in today’s environment is complex. But one thing is clear – we need to keep power flowing when we need it most.  

The Salt River Project District board is on the cusp of approving a nearly $900 million expansion of the Coolidge Generating Station, which burns natural gas. The lurking decision is wrong for SRP customers and for all Arizonans, for a variety of reasons. Here are the top five:

Last week, Salt River Project announced that it plans to spend nearly $1 billion to add 16 new natural gas units to its powerplant in Coolidge, one of the largest fossil fuel investments by a utility in recent memory. I served on the SRP board from 2016-2020, and this decision stunned me. It is wrong-headed, unnecessary, and out of step with where responsible electric utilities are moving in this country.

Over the past 10 years, we have watched as large wildfires ravaged the watershed in and around the Salt and Verde rivers. The devastation proves one important fact that must be addressed now – our forests are unhealthy.

Two companies that were negotiating to take over a coal-fired power plant on the Arizona-Utah line ended the effort Thursday, saying the challenges were too great.

As scandal erupted in the Republican special primary election in Arizona's 8th Congressional District, a Senate staffer was revealed to have exchanged suggestive text messages with former state Sen. Steve Montenegro.

The state’s largest utility wasted no time in spending money to discredit a ballot measure that seeks to increase renewable energy goals.

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.

In the 24-month report released by the United States Bureau of Reclamation in 2016, the bureau predicted a more than 50 percent chance of a water shortage in 2018. This August, the Bureau of Reclamation report reduced that projection to zero.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected arguments by attorneys for Salt River Project that SolarCity cannot challenge its pricing system. The appellate judges said they have no authority to consider the finding of a trial judge in Phoenix who said the challenge should be allowed to go ahead.