The 'Darth Vader' of Electric Utilities
A Matter of Degrees
Dr. Leah Stokes, Dr. Katharine Wilkinson
4.8 • 533 Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2021
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2013, a series of attack ads blitzed television sets across Arizona. They warned of a dire threat to senior citizens. Who was the villain? Solar energy.
These ads came from front groups funded by Arizona Public Service, the state's largest utility. It was part of a years-long fight against rooftop solar that turned ugly.
"I mean, for Star Wars fans, APS became the Darth Vader of electric utilities in America. I mean, I think you would be hard-pressed to find a utility that behaved as badly as APS did in the last decade," explains former regulator Kris Mayes.
But APS isn't alone. It's a prime example of how monopoly utilities abuse their power to influence regulatory decisions and slow clean-energy progress.
What happens if your electric utility starts doing things you don't agree with? What if they start attacking solar and proposing to build more and more fossil gas plants? What if they actively resist clean energy progress?
Well, you don't get a choice. You have to buy electricity, and you have to buy it from them. As a customer you're funding that.
In this episode, we'll detail how it happened in Arizona -- and how public pressure forced APS' to come clean.
Featured in this episode: Ryan Randazzo, Kris Mayes, David Pomerantz.
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A Matter of Degrees is a production of Post Script Audio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In 2013, a series of attack ads blitz television sets across Arizona. |
| 0:05.8 | We've seen this before. |
| 0:07.2 | The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like cylinder. |
| 0:11.3 | Connected companies getting corporate welfare. |
| 0:13.7 | They warned of a dire threat to senior citizens. |
| 0:16.6 | Any day now, bad things could start happening. |
| 0:19.6 | Who was the villain? |
| 0:21.5 | Solar energy. |
| 0:23.1 | We don't need this California-style corporate welfare in Arizona. |
| 0:27.1 | Ryan Randazzo took notice. |
| 0:29.1 | He's a veteran business reporter at the Arizona Republic who covers energy and utilities. |
| 0:34.2 | Ryan was used to his beat being overlooked. |
| 0:36.3 | He'd go to these obscure public meetings to record the latest votes on utility investment |
| 0:41.7 | plans and rate schedules and compliance rules. |
| 0:45.0 | But when solar energy started to pick up in Arizona, that all changed. |
| 0:50.7 | Suddenly it went from this really arcane subject that people would talk about in a monthly |
| 0:56.4 | meeting with 10 people in the audience to, we're seeing commercials on TV talking about how |
| 1:01.8 | evil solar is and how these California billionaires are taking over the state of Arizona, |
| 1:06.4 | and it became just front and center in the political arena in Arizona at the time. |
| 1:12.3 | Chris Mays saw those attack ads too. |
| 1:14.6 | She used to be a commissioner, someone who is charged with regulating utilities in Arizona. |
| 1:19.0 | And she presided over those 10-person boring meetings. |
... |
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