By Chamber Business News
In a state where every drop counts, concerns about the water demands of new power plants are reasonable. Arizona has endured more than two decades of drought. Reservoirs on the Colorado River are at historic lows, and the state has renewed an emergency drought declaration every year since 1999. Any proposal to build a new thermal electric power plant naturally raises a critical question: Where will it get its water—and how much will it use?
Arizona has long recognized the link between energy planning and water security. In 2010, the Arizona Corporation Commission revised its Integrated Resource Planning rules to require utilities to report the annual water use of their facilities and to prioritize dry-cooling options when available and cost-effective. That decision reflected our clear commitment to aligning energy policy with long-term water realities.
No form of energy is entirely without impact. A single utility-scale solar facility in Arizona can use up to 43 acre-feet of water per year simply to keep panels free of dust. In a desert state, that amount matters.
When it comes to nuclear power, however, Arizona has already shown that innovation is possible. For more than 30 years, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station—located just 50 miles west of Phoenix—has operated as the only nuclear power plant in the world not built near a large body of water. Rather than diverting water from rivers or aquifers, Palo Verde relies on recycled wastewater to cool its reactors and generate electricity.
That achievement proved nuclear can work in the desert. More importantly, it established a foundation of water conservation that the next generation of reactors is now poised to surpass.
