By Phil Riske | Senior Reporter/Writer
(STATE CAPITOL) — After tabling it last month, the Joint Committee on Capital Review on Tuesday gave a “favorable review” to a proposed $21M bonding request for an additional natural gas turbine for electrical generation on the ASU campus.
ASU needs state approval of the project because additional power will be needed for three oncoming research buildings.
ASU Executive Vice President Morgan Olsen told the committee Tuesday that without adequate power, millions of dollars in research projects would be lost.
ASU says its current turbine will be maxed out when the research buildings come on line.
The schools current turbine provides 22 percent of campus power needs, and a second turbine (natural gas) will increase that capacity to 36 percent.
The second turbine also would save $6M in energy savings over 20 years, which would pay for debt service, ASU says.
Last month, Rep. John Allen (R-15) said the university’s request was unnecessary.
“I don’t know why the university needs to be a power company,” Allen said. “Why add so much capacity,” Allen asked, saying the university already has excess capacity. Other private power generators do it for 8-cents per kilowatt hour, he said, compared to ASU’s projection of 12-cents per kilowatt hour.
Rep. Vince Leach (R-11), who supports the school’s bonding request, nevertheless on Tuesday expressed concern about businesses “going off the grid” and providing their own power generation.
“If everybody does that, you’ll leave rural America and other areas without a source of power,” he said.
Sen. John Kavanagh (R-23) said in a previous hearing he’d like to know what Arizona Public Service thinks about “chunks of power” going private.
