Arizona Public Service (APS), the state’s largest utility, has submitted a highly questionable new resource plan to the Arizona Corporation Commission, outlining a significant shift in its energy generation strategy through 2028.
The plan, detailed in a recent filing, reveals APS’s intent to disregard President Trump’s opposition to wind power. It will nearly double its generating capacity by adding 7,200 MW of new power, with 93% coming from expensive and unreliable renewable sources—solar, wind, and battery storage—while natural gas accounts for just 7%.
This marks a dramatic pivot toward renewables, with wind power additions matching gas over the next four years and solar outpacing gas by five times over the next three years.
The plan stems from APS’s 2023 “All Source” Request for Proposals (RFP), which initially sought 1,000 MW of new generation, with at least 700 MW from renewables. Surpassing expectations, APS contracted for 7,200 MW, transforming its energy mix.
By 2028, APS’s generation is projected to shift from 76% reliable dispatchable sources (55% natural gas, 14% coal, 8% nuclear) and 19% renewables (10% solar, 6% wind, 3% battery storage) to 46% reliable sources (35% gas, 6% coal, 5% nuclear) and 52% renewables (22% solar, 7% wind, 23% battery storage). This expansion is equivalent to building two new Palo Verde nuclear plants.
This renewable-heavy strategy comes despite recent emphasis by APS and the Commission on a new natural gas pipeline.
The plan has sparked controversy because it contrasts with President Trump’s criticism of wind energy, as APS doubles down on clean energy investments.
Regarding coal, APS’s filing remains vague on the closure of the Four Corners coal plant, projecting an exit between 2031 and 2038. This aligns with APS’s recent shift from “carbon-free” to a “carbon-neutral” goal by 2050.
The revised commitment addresses concerns about affordability and reliability while maintaining a focus on clean energy. Under carbon neutrality, APS must expand generation without increasing emissions, necessitating significant renewable and storage investments.
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club has expressed concerns over the delayed coal phase-out and questioned the cost of the renewable-heavy plan, estimating $42.7 billion over the next 15 years.
APS’s prior claims that renewables paired with storage could match the reliability and affordability of fossil fuels have faced skepticism that the transition may lead to higher rates and grid reliability challenges.
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
As Americans enjoy their freedom — as they have a God-given right to do — they drive where they want in privately owned cars (gas powered, hybrid, or electric), live comfortably in heated-and-air-conditioned homes, and spend their evenings cooking dinner on gas (or electric stoves), and watching whatever television program or sporting event they choose. All of it brought to them by virtue of abundant and affordable energy.
According to 2024 data published by the U.S. Department of Energy, 82.16 percent of the energy consumed in the United States came from fossil fuels, including coal, petroleum and natural gas. Another 8.67 percent came from nuclear power plants.
In other words, more than 90 percent of the energy used in this country last year came from these sources.
Only 1.64% came from windmills; and only 1.17 percent came from solar panels.
As this nation’s economy and population has grown, so too has its power needs. Since 1960, in fact, the consumption of energy produced by fossil fuels and nuclear power has more than doubled.
But the consumption of nuclear energy peaked in 2019 — and has stagnated since then — while facing a campaign of opposition from liberal environmental groups.
This is ironic, however, because as the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power increased in recent decades, greenhouse gas emissions declined. From 1990 to 2022, for example, fossil fuel consumption increased by 8.64 percent, according to the Department of Energy. But during that same period, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, greenhouse gas emissions declined by three percent.
Nonetheless, groups including the Sierra Club, 350.org, and the National Resources Defense Council have sought not merely to stop the growth of this type of energy production, but to roll it back. In theory, they would replace the production lost from nuclear power and fossil fuels with energy produced from “renewable sources,” including windmills and solar panels.
They are particularly opposed to the development of nuclear power — even though nuclear plants don’t emit greenhouse gases.
“The Sierra Club,” says its website, “continues to oppose construction of any new commercial nuclear fission power plants.”
350.org also opposes the construction of new nuclear plants. “New nuclear,” its website says, “is a dangerous distraction in the race to solve climate change.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) argues that “expanding nuclear power is not a sound strategy for diversifying America’s energy portfolio and reducing carbon pollution.”
However, some progress has been made recently in resisting this campaign to foist renewable energy development upon the United States. In 2021, some of this nation’s largest banks — including Wells Fargo, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America — joined the Net Zero Banking Alliance. This alliance, said the Sierra Club’s magazine, “signaled a commitment by member institutions to develop voluntary targets that support a climate goal of 1.5C above preindustrial levels.” Since then, however, each of these banks has dropped out of the alliance.
Unfortunately, the ”renewables only” advocates have also achieved some victories in recent years.
Since 2001, the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign has supported the closing of more than 300 coal-fired power plants in this country. In 2021, construction of a liquid natural gas export terminal in Oregon was also canceled. Then, in 2023, a proposed gas-fired power plant in Connecticut was canceled, too. These groups also pressured California into nearly shutting down the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which provides 9% of the state’s electricity, before state energy commissioners voted to extend its operation to 2030.
The relentless campaign to force America away from fossil fuels and nuclear power and towards wind and solar is also driving America toward energy dependence on the People’s Republic of China.
The Heritage Foundation published a report last year by Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Miles Pollard that showed how this is happening. “China has succeeded in dominating the world’s supply chains in green energy products and components,” it said. “If America continues to require the use of these green energy products, it will cede economic power to China, giving China control of American energy security.”
Limiting how we produce energy in the United States will, as a matter of course, impose limitations on our freedom. Reliance on China for our energy supply chain will make our country susceptible to economic coercion. Limiting how we produce energy, means less of it and fewer choices about how to use it. This is of course baked into the climate activists’ view of world, one where experts tell us we must drive EVs, use electric stoves, and eat less meat, so that even the smallest of life’s details are predecided.
To preserve freedom, we must unfetter ourselves from ideologically driven restrictions on fossil fuels and overcome decades of naysaying about nuclear power. In so doing we can ensure a future where abundant affordable energy gives every American real choice, which is the heart of freedom.
Attorney General Kris Mayes has long fancied herself as a champion for ratepayers. After another round of rate hikes rolled in at the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), this time a proposed 14% increase by both APS and TEP, AG Mayes fired off a press release announcing that she will “vigorously oppose” these requests as “Arizona residents struggle to keep up with ever-increasing electricity bills.”
Setting aside the fact that the AG has little purview over ACC affairs, Mayes seems to think that her own time serving on the Commission back in the 2000s makes her uniquely qualified to stop what seems like an endless barrage of double-digit rate hikes by our public utilities. Unfortunately for ratepayers, having Kris Mayes involved will only pour fuel on the Net Zero fire currently raging at the Corporation Commission.
You see, Kris Mayes is the one that laid the foundation for the Green Scam rate hikes Arizonans are suffering through today. In fact, the biggest irony about having Kris Mayes jump into the rate hike fray is that it highlights the dangerous parallels between the Commission she served on in 2006 and the one that we have today…
The Prescott City Council has voted down a proposed General Plan on Tuesday, rejecting what critics said contained “woke policies.” If the proposal had been approved, it would have made its way to the ballot for the next election.
The proposed General Plan included policies such as Vision Zero, road diets, and pricey, unreliable energy. These were just a small part of the “woke proposal,” according to critics, that seemed to change the dynamic of the city, rather than shape the future in a way that reflects the community’s vision and priorities.
Vision Zero aims to eliminate all traffic deaths and injuries, which may seem noble on the surface, but is designed to ultimately eliminate the use of fossil fuel vehicles.
Road diets have a similar goal, reducing vehicle lanes to add bike lanes or wider sidewalks.
Prescott Mayor Phil Goode, along with two city council members, opposed the original proposal, citing its misalignment with the city’s conservative values and practical needs. Mayor Goode spoke strongly against this proposal, which he believed reflected policies that could transform the small, historic town into Los Angeles or San Francisco.
In the final vote, the original plan failed to obtain the five-vote supermajority needed to be referred to the ballot. A revised version, which made minor adjustments but retained many of the original policies, was also brought forward but failed again, this time with a 4-3 vote.
Prescott City Council is running out of time to agree on a General Plan that best describes the community’s needs for future development. If they do not vote and decide soon, they may likely miss the ballot for this fall’s general election.
Associate of Government Affairs for Arizona Free Enterprise Club, Mylie Biggs appaluded the move, saying, “This is a major win for the people of Prescott and the members of the Council that stood firm. Every other city in Arizona should be cautious of the language in their own General Plans and follow Prescott’s lead in rejecting wokeness in their cities.”
Ethan Faverino is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.
For the past decade, our organization has been fighting the Green New Deal agenda in Arizona, working to score a decisive victory for reliable and affordable energy. Thanks to President Trump, that decisive victory now appears within reach.
Earlier this month, President Trump released three new executive orders and one proclamation, all aimed at unleashing American energy abundance. These executive actions are all part of a coordinated White House effort to initiate a tidal shift in the ever-steady march toward the Net Zero nightmare being pursued by radical environmentalists, the green industrial complex, and public utilities across the nation.
For years, energy regulators have forewarned of the impending grid crisis due to the overreliance on costly renewable energy, yet the previous administration only accelerated the catastrophe. The new Trump Executive Orders, coupled with his declaration of a National Energy Emergency, will directly address this crisis by ending the regulatory discrimination against coal, empowering the domestic mining of coal resources, encouraging the development of coal energy generation, and allowing for these activities to take place on federal lands.
Reigniting the American coal industry couldn’t happen soon enough. While China and India are building new coal plants at unprecedented rates to power their economic growth, we have been aggressively shutting our plants down…
