Sonoran Institute

The Sonoran Institute works to enhance the capacity of communities throughout Arizona and the West to manage growth, conserve natural resources and create prosperous, sustainable futures. This grant will support work that will take these concepts and apply them to renewable energy development in Arizona. Arizona has some of the world's most promising solar potential and hopes to become a global leader in advancing its development. In 2006, the Arizona Corporation Commission passed a renewable energy standard that mandates that electric utilities generate 15% of their energy from renewable resources by 2025. Also, because the State's power system is already somewhat linked to the California system, Arizona's solar potential is increasingly attractive to California utilities. But Arizona's Sonora Desert is a world treasure, with a unique ecosystem that includes national parks and other federal lands as well as a complex mix of state-owned public lands. This grant is aimed at strengthening the Sun Corridor Legacy Program and the AZ Solar Power and Renewable Transmission Project. Together, these projects seek to identify areas that are well-suited for solar projects and renewable transmission lines and then to endorse projects that are appropriately sited. The grant is also to help inform other states that are facing similar challenges between wide scale renewable development and protecting critical lands.