Earlier this month, several media outlets reported that power from Arizona Public Service’s solar power plant near Red Rock will supply power for PayPal and Arizona State University. The claim is only partly true, but readers were left with the unmistakable impression that PayPal and ASU would be running off of that power source.
The identical headlines in the identical Arizona Daily Star and Arizona Republic stories read: “$90M solar plant near Tucson to power PayPal, ASU.” The Tucson Sentinel’s headline read: “40MW solar plant north of Tucson powers ASU, PayPal. Arizona Business Daily’s headline read: “ASU, PayPal team up to buy solar power.”
It wasn’t until a reader made it down at least three paragraphs in each rendition did they discover the whole truth: ASU and PayPal are only purchasing renewable energy credits from APS in a deal approved by buddies at the Arizona Corporation Commission.
In a press release issued by APS on January 11, Morgan R. Olsen, ASU executive vice president, treasurer and chief financial officer stated, “This project enables us to expand our solar portfolio substantially with no initial capital investment and underscores our sustainability commitment.”
According to that press release, “APS developed and will own and operate the 40-megawatt photovoltaic plant, located 30 miles south of Casa Grande in Red Rock, Ariz.”
In an article from March 2015, the Institute For Energy Research reported:
”Many companies such as Apple and Google claim that they get their electricity from 100 percent renewable sources. At best, this claim is misleading and deceptive. We cannot find a single instance of a large company actually going “100 percent renewable.” The reality is that as long as these companies are connected to the electric grid, they still get the vast majority of their electricity from conventional sources such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear power, and are therefore not 100 percent renewable.”
The Institute For Energy Research notes that “RECs amount to a piece of paper saying the company has “offset” some of the electricity the company buys from conventional sources on the grid—the credits themselves can be bought and sold independent of the renewable energy itself. In other words, a company can buy the “renewable” label and apply it to the grid power it uses in order to call itself green. Thus, many companies that claim to be going 100 percent renewable not only use conventional electricity, but also never directly purchase renewable energy. Instead, they buy a piece of paper they can wave around for PR purposes without having to deal with the consequences of using unreliable wind and solar energy.”
In the identical Arizona Republic and Arizona Daily Star postings, it is reported that Apple “has a similar solar arrangement with neighboring utility Salt River Project,” referring to the ASU/PayPal credit deal. The Institute For Energy Research reports that “Apple boasts, “every one of our data centers is powered entirely by clean sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal energy.” In reality, Apple, Google and others on the EPA’s list of “100 Percent Green Power Users,” are “not powered exclusively by renewables. Rather, they are connected to the power grid, which is nowhere near 100 percent renewable. In fact, it’s 86 percent powered by coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. And there’s good reason for that—these technologies offer low-cost, reliable power when and where it is needed. By contrast, wind and solar power combined to produce between only 5 and 6 percent of the electricity in the U.S., and their supply is intermittent and often too far away from population centers to be economic.”
Daniel Press a professor and chair of the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz wrote an article, Renewable energy certificates are a feel-good scam, for the Mercury News in which he described the scheme:
Today, hundreds of universities and companies enthusiastically purchase billions of credible-sounding “Renewable Energy Certificates” in the belief that their investments are developing alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar power. They are doing no such thing. Instead of unwittingly buying empty bragging rights, these schools and corporate players should pay for real energy projects with measurable impacts, like rooftop solar panels and improvements in energy efficiency.
In the APS’ press release, Olsen stated, “ASU is proud to continue building our solar collection that has grown to 88 installations since 2004. In calendar year 2017, we expect approximately 30 percent of our electrical needs will be met with clean, renewable solar energy.”
“I agree with Prof. Press in that “Renewable energy certificates are a feel-good scam.” The development of utility scale solar power is an offshoot of the Arizona Corporation Commission mandate on renewable energy,” stated popular ADI columnist Jonathan DuHamel . “While the ACC may regulate utility rates, they should not dictate how electricity is produced. Solar generation of electricity is intrinsically unreliable, endangers our electric grid, and raises our electricity prices. Just look at your electric bill from TEP and see the extra “green energy charges”