Phoenix council member Yassamin Ansari pushes for climate action, sustainable energy
Yassamin Ansari began her professional career at the United Nations, as a policy adviser advocating for climate change. Now, as a Phoenix City Council member and vice mayor, she says that true progress toward a sustainable future starts at the local level. “We are on the front lines of climate change from extreme heat to air pollution,” said Ansari, who was elected to the city council in 2021 at age 28. Read more >>
Mountain Line unveils first fully electric buses in Flagstaff
When the bay doors opened and the new electric bus rolled in during Mountain Line’s launch event on Thursday, there was a strange silence. Despite the cavernous acoustics of the warehouse space, the bus moved forward with almost no sound — the gentle creak of fresh rubber on its tires louder than its electric propulsion. Even inside the bus, sitting right over the motor, there was not much to hear. Read more >>
Salt River Project looks from within to select new CEO to replace retiring Mike Hummel
Salt River Project has named longtime employee Jim Pratt as the company’s new general manager and CEO. Pratt will start his new job on May 5 to lead Arizona’s largest community-based, not-for-profit utility. Pratt succeeds CEO Mike Hummel, who is retiring. The Tempe-based company said that Pratt was selected from among a number of internal candidates. Read more >>
Microsoft agrees to make data centers air cooled amid water infrastructure challenges in Goodyear
Redmond, Washington-based tech giant Microsoft Corp. has agreed to switch its cooling system for future data centers in Goodyear and invest more than $40 million to expand the city’s wastewater capacity through an updated development agreement that the city that was approved last week. Microsoft has been planning to build a five-building data center campus across nearly 300 acres south of MC 85 and the Phoenix Goodyear Airport since it first purchased the site in 2018. Read more >>
KORE Power selects Siemens as infrastructure technology provider for Arizona battery gigafactory
KORE Power, Inc., the leading U.S.-based developer of battery cell technology for the clean energy and e-mobility industries, has chosen Siemens to support the company’s future 12-GWh lithium-ion battery cell production facility, known as ‘the KOREPlex.’ Smart factory technology from Siemens and investment capital via Siemens Financial Services will help accelerate the build-out of KORE Power’s Buckeye, AZ-based facility, a plant that will address the growing demand for battery cells due in large part to electric vehicle (EV) and renewable energy applications. Read more >>
Hobbs won’t support water legislation that ‘creates additional loopholes’
Gov. Katie Hobbs has made her stance on water clear as numerous bills related to water use and development are progressing through the Arizona Legislature this session. Water was one of the main talking points for Valley Partnership’s Q&A with the governor on Friday morning, where President and CEO Cheryl Lombard and Hobbs discussed her stances on priorities like transportation, education and development. Read more >>
AMV announces landmark achievement: First company to successfully demonstrate over 1 megawatt charging capability
Atlis Motor Vehicles (Nasdaq: AMV), a vertically integrated electric vehicle technology ecosystem company, and the first battery cell manufacturer to be fully owned and operated in the US, today announced successful demonstration of their ability to charge over 1 Megawatt. This is a significant milestone and marks a critical step towards realizing the Company’s vision of establishing a 1.5MW charging network. Read more >>
New lithium-ion battery recycling plant planned for Pinal County
Ecobat, one of the largest battery recyclers globally, has made plans to locate its its first North American battery recycling facility in the Phoenix metro and bring 60 new jobs to the area. The company announced that the facility will be located in Casa Grande and is Dallas-based Ecobat’s third lithium-ion battery recycling facility. The new location will produce an estimated 10,000 tons of recycled material per year with plans to expand capacity. Operations are expected to start in the third quarter of 2023. Read more >>
Arizona still gets a significant amount of power from burning coal. How soon could that change?
Four years ago, the biggest electric company in Arizona declared that solar energy plants paired with batteries were the cheapest way to power the state, marking a major departure from fossil fuels.Months later, the largest coal-fired power plant in the West, the Navajo Generating Station, shut down outside of Page, ending a 45-year run. Arizona Public Service Co. and Salt River Project appeared to dive headfirst into renewables at the expense of coal. Yet today, four coal plants in rural Arizona, as well as some in neighboring states, continue to power Arizona despite declarations that renewables are the cheapest option. Read more >>
AZ voters support expanding access to natural spaces for underserved communities
A majority of Arizona voters say they care about increasing access to natural spaces for lower-income populations and communities of color, a new bipartisan poll revealed. In the survey, 72% of respondents said ensuring marginalized communities are better connected to natural areas was important within the efforts of environmental conservation. Twenty-three percent said they viewed it as not very important or not important at all. Read more >>
ZEVX closes $20M+ funding round, appoints Don Listwin as CEO
ZEVX®, Inc., the worldwide leader in intelligent EV power system delivery, today announced closing over $20M in the first tranche of a funding round led by Reynolds Capital. In addition, the company announced the appointment of Don Listwin as CEO, Kevin J. Kennedy as Chairman and independent Board member, as well as David L. Shimek and Sidney Haider, of The Reynolds and Reynolds Company, as new Board members. Read more >>