“The trend is being driven locally by continued population growth, hotter summers, power-hungry data centers and the rise of advanced manufacturing.”
Enter Transwestern Pipeline Co. It’s “$5.3 billion, 42-inch, [natural gas] pipeline” will run “from west Texas to Arizona.” Utilities say it “will ‘help maintain year-round regional energy reliability.’”AZCentral reports construction is “expected to be completed by late 2029.”
Court Rich,Rose Law Group’s director of renewable energy & utility infrastructure, is upbeat about the new pipeline and the energy it will bring. “The lack of power availability is sidelining billions of dollars in investment that are waiting to be made in Arizona right now. A new gas pipeline into Arizona has long been talked about since our state’s gas supply is essentially tapped out at this point,” Rich tells RLGR.
“More gas means more electric power, so this is huge news to the numerous businesses that have been left with no option for development in the state,” he says.
But: “The question,” Rich says, “really is whether this new gas along with new solar and new battery energy storage and even ultimately new nuclear are going to be enough to keep up with our state’s desperate hunger for the power necessary to run the economy of the future.”
