Background

APS has a poor track record of protecting its customers from high and unpredictable electricity rates and now the utility wants to hike up customers’ electricity bills again. In this new rate case, APS is seeking to charge customers for unreasonable expenditures to keep burning fossil fuels, while neglecting to plan a just and equitable transition towards renewable energy for a cleaner and fairer future. 

Talking Points

• While APS announced in January that it will be retiring the Four Corners coal-fired power plant earlier than originally planned, the power plant will still be running until 2031. Customers will be burdened with the expenses associated with this coal plant for over the next decade. 

• APS should retire the Four Corners plant earlier and replace it with solar and battery storage to save customers money. A 2019 analysis by Strategen showed that retiring all of APS’s coal by 2023 and replacing it with solar and battery would save customers almost $500 million, annually. Despite mounting evidence that this plant is a losing bet for customers, APS has refused to even model a 2020s retirement of Four Corners. 

• A swift transition to renewables would better protect our health and climate. Pollution from Four Corners is responsible for 150 asthma attacks annually and carbon emissions equivalent to over a million cars on the road. 

• A critical part of this transition ensures no new fracked gas infrastructure or expenditures are passed on to customers. 

  • A 2019  study by Rocky Mountain Institute finds that 90% of proposed combined-cycle gas plants in the next five years will be uneconomical by 2035, if built -- a future cost burden that could be avoided with clean energy.

  • Nationally, customers would save $29 billion if investments were made in renewables rather than wasted on gas plants. 

  • Burning fracked gas releases methane, a greenhouse gas on steroids that is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

• At a time when customers and people in coal-affected communities are struggling to pay their bills and access resources to weather the global pandemic, it is irresponsible for APS to increase our economic and environmental burdens. 

  • According to a new nationwide study, coronavirus patients with long-term exposure to pollution before the pandemic are more likely to die from the infection. Specifically, an increase of even a single unit of particulate matter is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate. 

  • In communities living around coal plants that provide power to Arizona, the crisis is even more severe. The Navajo Nation had among the highest COVID-19 cases, per capita. As a community strapped for resources, from water to groceries, the global pandemic has exacerbated the inequities this community has endured for decades. 

• We know that the era of coal is coming to an end, much sooner than APS’s current timeline for Four Corners, and we need APS to help plan for that future. Coal- affected communities on the Navajo Nation need time and resources to plan a just and equitable transition away from coal in order to protect their economy and utilities, including APS - which has and will continue to profit from ongoing operations at Four Corners at the expense of our communities’ health and the climate - should be required to invest in that transition. 

• Instead of hiking up customer rates to keep Four Corners running, APS should be planning how to support the Navajo, including giving preference to renewable replacement resources on Navajo land.  

  • The massive amount of energy infrastructure connecting Navajo lands to other cities offers a prime opportunity to invest in clean energy. Currently, the city of Los Angeles and the Navajo are working through a proposal to build solar projects to economically compensate coal-affected communities in a clean and sustainable way. 

• The rapidly changing energy landscape makes it critical for the burdens forced on fossil fuel workers and communities to be assessed in all utility planning, instead of investing time and resources in throwing lifelines to toxic, out-dated coal plants or further investing in polluting fracked gas.