By Phil Riske | Senior Reporter/Writer
(STATE CAPITOL) – After concerns about the need for and timing of a proposed additional natural gas turbine for electrical generation on the ASU campus, a legislative panel voted 5-3 on June 20 to table the $21M bonding request until September.
ASU needs state approval of the project because additional power will be needed for three oncoming research buildings, Bruce Nevel, associate vice president for Facilities Development and Management at Arizona State University to the Joint Committee on Capital Review. He said 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, Nevel said.
Strong opposition to voting on the project now came from Rep. John Allen (R-15).
“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.
Nevel countered, saying the current turbine will be maxed out when the research buildings come on line.
Rep. Steve Farley (D-9) objected to the delay of the committee vote, asking why “should we second-guess ASU bonding packages.”
Members expressed reservations about the project coming before them now.
“This should have [been on the agenda] six to nine months ago,” said Rep. Vince Leach (R-11).
Sen. John Kavanagh (R-23) said he’d like to know what Arizona Public Service thinks about “chunks of power” going private.
