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CEO: APS committed to clean energy future

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Imagine a world with 100 percent clean energy. We are. For more than 130 years, our company has been providing safe, affordable and reliable energy to millions of homes and businesses across Arizona.

We are also at the forefront of a dramatic transition that responds to a desire expressed by stakeholders to decarbonize our electric grid. Without question, the energy industry has a critical role to play in creating a clean-energy economy in the United States, and APS is committed to doing our part.

Today, we are making a commitment to Arizona. By 2050, APS will deliver 100 percent clean, carbon-free and affordable electricity to our customers. This goal includes a nearer-term 2030 target of 65 percent clean energy, with 45 percent of our portfolio coming from renewable energy. We also will cease all coal-fired generation by 2031.

This goal builds on our history of promoting and integrating renewables, energy efficiency, battery storage and carbon-free generation. Is it aggressive? Yes. Do we believe it is possible? Absolutely.

However, we cannot do it alone. It will require a combination of the right technologies, collaborative partnerships and a supportive policy environment that understands flexibility is critical to balance the building of clean generation, while maintaining affordability and reliability for our customers.

• Clean: Move toward a lower-carbon grid, anchored by Palo Verde’s carbon-free nuclear power and regulatory policy that allows us to get as clean as we can, as fast as we can.

• Affordable: Capitalize on market-driven solutions, flexibility, and attracting new business to grow our state’s economy to maximize resources and bring costs down for customers.

• Reliable: Make intelligent investments in new technologies, apply them in pioneering ways and drive research and development to embrace innovation — collaborating with universities and other thought leaders to keep our grid reliable as our generation gets cleaner.

Our plan is based on sound science, aimed at helping customers realize their own sustainability goals and attracting more employers to Arizona. While all of the solutions we need are not yet known — and some are yet to be envisioned — achieving and realizing the full benefits of a completely clean energy mix will take partnership. It’s something for all of us, by all of us.

This is just the beginning. In the coming weeks, we will be ready to share additional details in our Clean Energy Pathways report, our Integrated Resource Plan and other studies currently underway.

We look forward to collaborating with you, our customers, communities, employees, policy makers, shareholders and others to achieve a shared, sustainable vision for APS.

We are imagining a world powered by 100 percent clean energy.

Join us.

Jeff Guldner is CEO at Arizona Public Service.