Electricity Required

The AZ Republic has an article today on the San Tan Power Plant on Warner, and notes that we will be grateful for the additional power this summer:

The Santan power plant will play a vital role in the Valley's power grid this summer, The Salt River Project and Arizona Corporation Commission officials say. That's due mainly to delayed repairs to the fire-damaged Westwing station near Sun City and explosive East Valley growth that requires more energy,
officials say."It will be indispensable in making sure the lights and air conditioners stay on this summer," said Arizona Corporation Commissioner Bill Mundell.The Santan plant became operational last month when the SRP unveiled its 550-megawatt generating units. One megawatt services about 200 households during the summer.

The article also notes that there was quite a bit of contention about the expansion of that plant. I posted here about some acronyms used in the development world, most notably NIMBY, and this expansion really had people saying some unbelievable things. The Mister was asked by SRP to be on a citizen’s committee to hash out the aesthetic mitigations – he is very gifted at consensus-building – and he found it to be one of the most trying efforts of his adult life. As it turned out, the residents succeeded in demanding a mind-boggling number:

To make the plant less intrusive on the community, the SRP has spent $20 million in landscaping at the site, SRP spokesman Scott Harelson said. The plant sits in a 15-foot pit with a 25-foot, tiered berm built around the perimeter that includes flowers, trees, stone work and a nearby trail."The whole idea is to mitigate the aesthetic view of what's inside here," Bill Rihs, SRP's manager of new generation projects, said during a tour of the facility last month.

TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS in landscaping; that is a lot of cash. The Mister and I often comment on the huge palm trees in the median as we drive through, since we have an idea of how much each of those palms cost.

After watching the gas pipeline debacle from last year, and the demand for government to do something to lower gasoline prices this year, I kind of feel sorry for SRP; after all, they are providing the essential service that we need, and they end up rather vilified for trying to do so, even after kicking in a cool $20 million.

But the most important part of this whole story is that we will not suffer the rolling blackouts this summer that we would were this new plant expansion not operational.