The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Michael A. Chihak
Good news, Arizona electricity customers! The chair of the Arizona Corporation Commission says the ACC wants to “really try to help ratepayers.”
If you believe that from the head of the biased-for-utilities ACC, we have a “water positive” project to sell you.
Here’s the context for that declaration from commission chair Kevin Thompson: The ACC on Aug. 14 began the process of dropping its two-decade-old requirements that utilities generate more electricity with renewable sources, primarily solar.
That led the commissioners to hint at lower utility bills for Arizonans, saying electricity customers should not have to subsidize solar energy generation.
Before voting with the other four commissioners to begin the process of revoking renewable energy requirements, Thompson said, “We hear a lot of teeth gnashing any time we touch subsidies and any time we really try to help ratepayers at large.”
What will really help ratepayers? Lower rates. Let’s break it down.
Arizona Public Service, the state’s biggest utility, told the commission “that potentially millions and millions of extra dollars are being put on the backs of APS ratepayers to meet (renewable energy) mandates,” Thompson said.
Taking operators of a monopoly at their word on anything involving money is perilous, but we’ll go with it for now. APS rates include charges for what Thompson said cover costs of producing electricity with solar. Thus, removing the mandates for renewables should lower rates. Thompson and other commissioners implied as much, including his “help ratepayers” comment.
That means the ACC should tell Tucson Electric Power to withdraw its request for a 14% rate increase next year. And APS, covering much of metro Phoenix and 10 other counties, ought to be compelled to withdraw its nearly 14% increase request, also for 2026.
Don’t bet on the Republicans who populate the commission doing anything but supporting the utilities, rather than the utilities’ customers. They have shown that bent, acquiescing to utilities time and again to approve double-digit percentage rate increases.
Now they are about to allow utilities to turn away from renewable energy and return to full-blown use of climate-damaging fossil fuels.
It’s a win-win for the utilities. They spend less on renewables while continuing fossil-fuel emissions that will further affect climate, leading to an even hotter Arizona, more electricity used for air conditioning, consumers paying more and higher utility profits.
APS, the state’s largest electric utility, said even before the commission started unwinding renewable energy mandates that it was breaking its promises to close a big coal-fired generating plant in New Mexico by 2031 and to be carbon-free by 2050.
As for TEP, its parent company, Fortis Inc. — website motto “Delivering a Cleaner Energy Future,” reported a 13.8% increase in net earnings for the second quarter of 2025, from 2024’s second quarter. The CEO cited “progress on key regulatory proceedings in Arizona.” Given the ACC’s recent history of capitulation, does that surprise?
Utility officials will argue that switching to renewables isn’t so simple, that they are entitled to a certain return on their capital investments and that the complexities of maintaining their parts of the grid while trying to meet increased demands for electricity require lots of money raised through the rates they charge for tried-and-true operations.
Fundamentally, though, the utilities have talked the ACC into allowing them to move away from using more solar in favor of profiting from further damage to the planet.
All of which means more hot air, literally and figuratively, from the state’s electric utility monopolies and the state’s utility regulators.
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