Andrew Tobin, a member of the Arizona Corporation Commission, proposed for utilities in Arizona to site 80 percent of their electricity from renewables and nuclear by 2050. The proposal also called to deploy 3,000 megawatts of energy storage by 2030, along with reforms to boost energy efficiency, electric vehicles and biomass.
The Energy Standard Modernization Plan goal is to produce one of the cleanest energy mixes in the nation, while decreasing prices for consumers and improving grid reliability.
Arizona has been pushing for more clean energy in the past few years. In 2016, two-fifths of Arizona’s renewable electricity generation came from solar energy, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, an independent statistics and analysis firm. The state ranked second in the nation in utility-scale electricity generation from solar energy and third in generation from distributed (customer-sited, small-scale) solar resources.
Arizona, the 14th most populous state, ranked 44th in the nation in per capita energy consumption in 2015, partly because of the state’s small industrial sector.
