SRP plans big boost in solar power

Utility plans fivefold increase in next 7 years

Salt River Project will massively increase the amount of solar energy the utility uses by 2025, saving the company money and reducing its reliance on natural gas, officials said Thursday.

SRP officials said they plan to add 1,000 megawatts of solar to the system over seven years, a big increase from the 200 megawatts on SRP’s system today.

CEO Mike Hummel told the board members the amount is the maximum amount of solar energy SRP can put into service without major impacts on the grid and the company’s coal-fired power plants.

“It is an aggressive move on renewables,” Hummel said. “It is an aggressive move on scale. But it is one I believe we can make work.”

One megawatt of capacity is enough energy to supply about 250 homes at once, so the additional solar energy will be enough to supply about a quarter million homes while the sun is shining.

SRP also has about 180 megawatts of solar on its system that customers have installed, and that figure is expected to grow to about 300 megawatts over the same time, Hummel said.

SRP came up with the plan after setting out to explore the maximum amount of solar energy it could accommodate on the power grid, he said.During the hottest hours of the hottest days, power demand from SRP customers peaks at about 7,000 megawatts.

SRP has faced criticism for not moving as quickly to develop renewable energy as the state requires of other utilities. Unlike Arizona Public Service Co. and Tucson Electric Power, SRP is not regulated by the Arizona Corporation Commission.

The Corporation Commission requires APS, TEP and others to get 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2025 and another 22 percent from efficiency measures by 2020.

SRP’s elected board of directors sets its own sustainability goals.

The plan means SRP will get 16 percent of its energy supply from renewable sources in 2025, with 11 percent of that from solar alone.

It will get an additional 11 percent of its supply from energy-efficiency measures that encourage customers to use less electricity.

“It definitely is a win, win, win for the state, customers and for the utility,” said Amanda Ormond, director of Western Grid Group, a clean energy organization.

“What SRP has done is they are building a system that is flexible enough to take on solar generation, which is what we need to be doing.”

Ormond said SRP’s plans to eventually add battery storage to the grid is prudent.

“We have a lot to learn about storage as the price comes down,” she said. “The game changer we’ve seen in the last year is solar has become cheaper than any other power source available. SRP has always been good at buying low-cost energy.”

SRP spokesman Scott Harelson said the timing of the announcement had nothing to do with the recent election, where voters defeated Proposition 127, which would have required regulated utilities, but not SRP, to get half their power from renewables by 2030.

He said SRP didn’t present the plan until now because the plan was not ready.

“This plan doesn’t have anything to do with Prop. 127 and would have been brought forward irrespective of that proposed measure,” he said.

Switching to solar from natural gas for such a large chunk of SRP’s energy supply will prevent 5.2 million tons of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere through 2030, said Hank Courtright, SRP senior director of corporate strategy, planning and innovation.

That’s equivalent to taking 1 million cars off the road for a year, or the emissions from 708,000 homes, he said.

Combined with the 16 percent of SRP’s energy supply from the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, the utility will be getting 32 percent of its supply from carbon-free sources.

“It’s starting to be a significant number in terms of the percent that is carbon free,” Courtright said.