Mesa Asks Citizens To Conserve Electricity Amid Concerns Over Energy Supply
Mesa is urging residents to conserve electricity as prices soar and energy reserves are diminishing.
The city of Mesa operates its own electric utility that serves about 18,000 residential, commercial and light industrial customers in the downtown area.
Frank McRae is the city’s director of the Energy Resources Department. He said the power supply markets are tightening to a point they had projected wouldn’t happen until 2023.
"There’s typically an amount of supply that exceeds demand amongst the utilities and the power providers in the western regional markets," he said. "That margin, or what we call reserve margin, has diminished significantly over the last several years." So as a result, energy prices have spiked.
Mesa is asking customers to conserve energy consumption from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., because energy costs for the city for that time period have increased tenfold over the past year.
McRae did not rule out the possibility that Arizona could experience widespread power outages, like those experienced in Texas in the spring.
“There’s more similarities with what happened in Texas this February, than there are differences," he said. "If a major electric generating station were to trip offline, or a wildland fire caused the utilities to shut down those high voltage transmission lines that go from remote electric generating stations into the major metropolitan areas — any one of those events could trigger something like the need to go to a rolling black out."
=========================================================================
Huge Land Sale in Pinal County Sets Up Planned 100-Megawatt Solar Project
“This is a desirable location for solar,” Miller said. “We are also working with two other companies looking to do large-scale solar projects in the area.”
Scottsdale-based Saint Holdings sold 1,027 acres to a company called Saint Solar, an entity controlled by Florida Power & Light Co., the principal subsidiary of NextEra Energy Inc., according to real estate database Vizzda.
The land sold May 15 for $14.8 million, according to Vizzda. . .The solar project is north of the planned $1 billion, 2,000-job manufacturing plant for Nikola Motor Co. and its hydrogen-electric trucks.Saint Holdings LLC also sold the land to Nikola for its facility and to California-based Lucid Motors, which is planning a $700 million electric car plant in nearby Casa Grande.
No comments:
Post a Comment