Community Partnership Report - Power for Our Lives
Environmental stewardship is an important part of our plans to serve customers’ growing energy needs. We’re expanding our solar energy program, increasing our use of renewable energy resources and cultivating creative new ways to reduce emissions from the generation of electric power. More than 80 UES customers have installed solar electric, solar hot water or wind systems.
We fully support Arizona’s ambitious Renewable Energy Standard (RES), which calls for UES to increase the use of renewable energy each year until such resources account for 15 percent of our power in 2025. To meet that standard, we’ll rely on both large, utility-grade installations and smaller, “distributed” resources like solar photovoltaic systems and solar hot water heaters for residential customers and solar day-lighting or geothermal heating systems for businesses.
Through programs like SunShare and GreenWatts, UES already offers options to our customers who want to help the environment.
Renewable Energy
Generous rebates are now available to customers who install solar hot water heating, solar electric, wind and other alternative energy resources at their home or business. Combined with federal and state tax incentives, installation of renewable resources is easier than ever. For a complete list of UES' green programs, click here.
Arizona’s sunny climate provides an abundant source of renewable energy, placing UES and our parent company, UniSource Energy Corp., in an important position to encourage development and adoption of new solar technologies.
UES' improved solar incentives offer subsidies of up to $3,000 per kilowatt (kW) of solar generating capacity for residential customers and up to $2,500 per kW for businesses. More than 100 customers have received incentives for installation of solar photovoltaic systems at their homes or businesses.
Incentives were paid to more than 20 residential customers who installed solar hot water systems and to more than a dozen customers for wind-powered systems.
GreenWatts
Our GreenWatts program encourages our electric customers support the expansion of solar energy projects in Arizona. Our customers can adopt GreenWatts – blocks of renewable energy resources – by adding a small premium to their monthly bills. Until UES can establish its own sources of renewable energy, a portion of GreenWatts contributions will be used to purchase green power “credits” from sources including Tucson Electric Power (TEP), UES's sister company.
With more than $484,000 in contributions over the life of the program, UES has helped sponsor the installation of photovoltaic systems at more than 20 schools and non-profit organizations in Arizona.
Reduced Demand for Natural Gas
State regulators recently approved our plans for several programs that will increase energy savings and could reduce our customers’ monthly bills by enabling them to use energy-efficient products and services.
With a budget of over $1 million, these programs include expansion of a program that will help low-income customers make their homes more energy efficient and a new incentive for customers to invest in energy-efficient gas-fueled furnaces.
Clean Burning Generation
The new natural gas-fired Black Mountain Generating Station, which began producing power in May 2008, was built with environmental efficiency in mind. The Mohave County facility is equipped with state-of-the-art emissions control equipment, including technology that reduces the output of nitrogen oxides. The plant also relies on recycled wastewater to reduce its use of fresh water.
