Arizona Can't Get Power To Native Reservations, But Bending Over Backwards To Supply Data/AI Centers

[hatrack]

EDIT

A fierce battle for electric power is being waged across the nation, and Nez is one of thousands of people who have wound up on the losing end. Amid a boom in data centers, the energy-intensive warehouses that run supercomputers for Big Tech companies, Arizona is racing to increase electricity production. In February, the state utility board approved an 8 percent rate hike to bolster power infrastructure throughout the state, where data centers are popping up faster than almost anywhere in the United States. But it rejected a plan to bring electricity to parts of the Navajo Nation land, concluding that electric customers should not be asked to foot the nearly $4 million bill. “We’ve been without [power] for quite a long time,” said Nez, who lives separately from her teenage children so they have electricity to complete their schoolwork. Tech companies “already have it,” she said, “and for them to get more power, it’s kind of not right.”

Nicole Garcia, a spokeswoman for Arizona’s utility board the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), said it did not approve the Navajo aid provision because of “concerns about how the funds would be used,” adding that customers are not “responsible for extending electricity to all tribal areas of the state.” Ann Porter, a spokesperson for the power company Arizona Public Service (APS), said that its process for raising rates is “backward-looking.” The organization aims to “recover money we’ve already spent and better align with the cost to maintain a reliable energy grid for Arizona.”

After a years-long courtship of Big Tech by local politicians, power companies and utility regulators eager for the promise of tax revenue and jobs, the strain on Arizona’s power grid is already apparent. Often, vulnerable communities are paying the price. While Nez and her neighbors lost a shot at getting power, the historically Black town of Randolph, almost 60 miles south of Phoenix, faces the expansion of a massive natural gas plant that emits particulate matter linked to asthma and lung cancer.

In 2022, the Arizona Corporation Commission halted a planned expansion of the gas plant. But the Salt River Project (SRP) appealed, arguing that the plant was crucial to meeting short-term power needs. Randy Miller, a Salt River Project board member not representing the board, said the decision to expand the plant was due in part to the growing demands of data centers. Though the power company has funded scholarships, road pavings and a community center in Randolph, resident Jeff Jordan, who lives in the shadow of the gas plant and struggles with asthma and heart issues, said he was furious when the ACC approved the expansion, which happened last year after SRP reached a settlement with town representatives. “We’re already impacted enough,” Jordan said. “But they’re here for one reason and one reason only: and that’s money.”

EDIT

https://wapo.st/4j4SIYG

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/12/23/arizona-data-centers-navajo-power-aps-srp/

[Wonder Why]

1. Arizona can always send the Navaho back to their native land. uh!

Never mind. They'd have to give them back the state.