Economic Collaborative of Northern Arizona (ECoNA) — APS Pledges ‘Responsible Growth’

• Safeguarding Reliability: APS will not connect extra-large customers to the grid faster than it can reliably support.
• Protecting Customer Rates: New extra-large energy users will pay the costs associated with servicing their energy needs and growth, and the costs of investments and upgrades will not be shifted to residential and business customers.
• Preserving Capacity. Before committing to serve new extra-large customers, APS will preserve enough capacity to meet the needs of Arizona’s current and future homes, small and larger businesses, schools, hospitals, and communities.

“Folks, while we consider it our job to be able to support growth and serve it reliably, these three principles are non-negotiable,” Geisler told the conference. “And so extra-large customers coming into Arizona need to know that if they want to invest in Arizona, they’ve got to work with us on these principles. That’s the only way we are going to do business.”

This isn’t the first time APS has worked to ensure that the growth of data centers has not adversely impacted current APS customers. Almost 10 years ago, the utility was proactive in developing a “high load factor rate” to ensure that extra-large customers paid rates that reflected the cost to serve them.

Most of us rely on data centers in some way, and they are key to our state’s growth. But it is reassuring to know that APS is reaffirming its promise to protect existing (and future) homes, schools, hospitals, and businesses, while meeting the demand of this unique business sector.