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The Battle for Solar Energy in the Country's Sunniest State (newyorker.com)
Carolyn Kormann, writing for The New Yorker: Steyer [billionaire Tom Steyer, who for years has tried to pass Proposition 127, an amendment to Arizona's constitution that would require power companies to generate fifty per cent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030] and his coalition say that the problem is simple: A.P.S. (state's largest utility, Arizona Public Service) is an investor-owned company, motivated primarily by its responsibility to protect profits for its shareholders, many of whom reside out of state. In 2017, the company made four hundred and eighty-eight million dollars, an increase of forty-six million from the previous year. The Arizona Corporation Commission (A.C.C.), a five-member elected "fourth branch" of state government, is supposed to keep the utility's monopoly in check -- setting limits on capital investments and pricing, while guaranteeing a certain margin of profit.
But critics have long argued that the arrangement incentivizes utilities to "gold-plate," or make inessential investments. (The phenomenon even has a name: the Averch-Johnson effect.) For A.P.S., a two-hundred-million-dollar gas-fuel plant would be more lucrative than a twenty-million-dollar solar array because the utility can charge higher rates to recoup its investment costs. Kris Mayes, a former Republican A.C.C. commissioner, who helped write the language of Prop 127, told me the Averch-Johnson effect explains why, in 2017, A.P.S. called for more than five thousand megawatts of new natural-gas additions, and almost no utility-scale renewables. "If they were truly acting in public interest," Kris Mayes, a former Republican A.C.C. commissioner, said, "they would not be proposing fifty-four hundred megawatts of new natural-gas plants."
But critics have long argued that the arrangement incentivizes utilities to "gold-plate," or make inessential investments. (The phenomenon even has a name: the Averch-Johnson effect.) For A.P.S., a two-hundred-million-dollar gas-fuel plant would be more lucrative than a twenty-million-dollar solar array because the utility can charge higher rates to recoup its investment costs. Kris Mayes, a former Republican A.C.C. commissioner, who helped write the language of Prop 127, told me the Averch-Johnson effect explains why, in 2017, A.P.S. called for more than five thousand megawatts of new natural-gas additions, and almost no utility-scale renewables. "If they were truly acting in public interest," Kris Mayes, a former Republican A.C.C. commissioner, said, "they would not be proposing fifty-four hundred megawatts of new natural-gas plants."
means more electrics. But that's kind of a stretch since the ROI on solar is debatable.
The main thing is that for all the talk of "Clean Coal" and even natural gas those plants still crank out a lot of emissions. Yes, it is possible to build a zero emission coal or gas plant, but it's expensive as hell and you have to change the filters way more than they want to. By the time you're done you could have done solar.
But that's not the point. They want to spew out their particulates while spewing nonsense about Clean Coal and pocket the extra money.
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How many straw men can you get in one post?
Government is _exactly_ what's needed for necessary things like power and gas delivery.
What makes you think a company that answers to shareholders will do things more efficiently, and includes their profit margin, than a public utility that has no profits to generate.
E.g. your assumption that a public utility is inherently wasteful, or that too much money goes to pensions isn't supported by the large number of agencies that operate utilities very efficently .. the pensions and waste you cite are red herrings.
Most all public utilities have regulations in place that almost all of the money collected go towards providing the service being regulated.
There might be surcharges or forward fees in your bill for new infrastructure or power plants, but again, those things are for he use of the rate payers, not the profit margins of the shareholders.
They already have more than enough power plants, the goal should be to diversify. Most power usage is during the day, and solar plants could easily cover this peak usage.
But the crux of the problem is not that the utility wants to build this plant in order to generate electricity; they want the more expensive plant because this will result in more profits when they are reimbursed for the costs of the plant.
Over 1/4 of total household power use in AZ is Airconditioning, during the day that is obviously most of the household use. Guess what is not needed after a tropical storm with cloud cover? It also helps the wind and hydro power will then be driven up to take over any excess. Also cloud cover doesn't end solar, still get 25% of the capacity, so when daytime demand is cut in half you will still have 1/4 of the solar power, so not that much makeup would be needed if PV was providing half the power, all is still good.