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Solar Power Protects Arizona Families
Against Rising Electricity Prices

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Electricity Prices Rise an Average of 6% per Year

As the cost to mine, transport, crush, and burn coal increases, so will the price of your electricity bills. Want to see how much rates have gone up in the past 5 years? Click on your electricity company below. These stories only cover the last 5 years, but hopefully you will be begin to realize why installing solar is a good way to protect your family against rising electricity prices.

1. APS Rate Hike Increases Ratepayer Electric Bills

2. SRP Rate Hike Increases Ratepayer Electric Bills

3. TEP Rate Hike Increases Ratepayer Electric Bills

4. SSVEC Rate Hike Increases Ratepayer Electric Bills

5. Trico Rate Hike Increases Ratepayer Electric Bills

Your Electric Bill Will Double in 10 Years & Triple in 15 Years

If you vote "no" for solar in 2012, then your electric bill will continue to rise at an average of 6% a year. That may not sound like much, but this means that your electricity bill will double in just 10 years. In 15 years your electric bill will be triple what it is today. That means a summertime electric bill of $400 today may be $800 in 10 years and then may increase to $1,200 per month in just 15 years.

Solar Powers Saves Homeowners Thousands of Dollars Per Year

Solar panels produce a lot of free electricity, which saves an averag customer with 5 kilowatt solar systeme $1,000 to $1,200 per year on their electric bills. Even more important is that the fact solar power produces zero pollution, which is great for Arizona's air quality.

Why Are Coal Power Plants So Much More Expensive to Operate?

Coal power plants are very expensive to operate. Coal is very expensive to mine, transport, crush and burn. An average coal plant burns 10,000 tons of coal at a cost of $1 million per day or $365 million per year. The smoke produced from burning coal contains CO2, SO2, NOX and Mercury, which are very hazardous to all living creatures. Cleaning up coal air pollution is very expensive. The price tag for installing one set of air scrubbers to clean carbon emissions out of polluted air for SRP ratepayers was $405 million dollars.

Why Are Solar Power Panels Better? Because They Don't Burn Coal

Solar is also expenisve, but it is much cheaper in the long run because solar uses free solar energy to generate clean green electricity and does not require expensive pollution control equipment.

Unlike coal, solar panels produce enough free electricity to actually pay for their installation. Instead of spending $365 million on coal to burn or $405 million on air scrubbers, why not spend more money to install solar power to create clean solar electricity? If ratepayers can afford to spend $365 million on coal, why not invest the same amount per year on solar? Replacing expensive coal as a fuel source and replacing it with free solar fuel makes a lot of common sense.

Over 25 years at today's price of $365 million per year on coal, voters will spend more than $9.1 billion on coal to power a single electricity generation plant. There are 26 electric generation plants in Arizona.

If voters spent $365 million on solar in one year, the solar panels would generate free clean electricity for next 25 years with out having to pay for fuel. Solar would actually pay for itself and remove the cost of mining, transporting, and burning coal.

How much solar power would $365 million worth of solar tax credits buy? A budget of $365 million would fund a $12,000 tax credit for more than 30,470 households to install a 5.3 kilowatt solar power array. A solar power array saves customers approximately $20 per month per kilowatt installed. A 5.3 kilowatt system would save an average customer $1,272 per year on their electric bill. Multiply that figure by 30,470 households and you will see that solar power would save Arizona ratepayers roughly $39 million in the first year of operation and $975 million over the solar panel's 25-year lifecycle.

A 5.3 kilowatt system produces 1,750 hours of solar electricity, so 5.3 kilowatts x 1,750 hours equals 9,275 kilowatt hours (kWh) per year of free electricity. Over 25 years, a single 5.3 kilowatt solar power array will produce 231,875 kWh of free solar electricity. Imagine how much clean electricity 30,479 solar systems would generate! Replacing coal as a fuel source and replacing it with solar would save Arizona ratepayers billions of dollars in reduced fuel costs.

Can Utility Companies Afford to Install More Solar?

But can Arizona utiltity companies afford to pay for solar? If the six major utility companies in Arizona divided a solar tax credit budget of $365 million would only break down to $60 million per utility company. Paying $60 million per year on solar is a lot more affordable than spending $405 on air scrubbers. Right?

With that said, the cost of burning coal is just one expense of producing electricity. There are many other areas where solar will save money such as line loss that occurs when transmitting electricity over long transimission lines.

All of these cost savings and more are detailed in the R.W. Beck research report mentioned below. The R.W. Beck report shows how and where APS would save $3 billion by moving away from burning coal and spending more money to install solar power arrays. The same would be true for every electric utility company in Arizona on a slightly smaller scale.

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Your Donations Help Us Pay for Voter Signature Collection

To get the "Go Solar in Arizona" Economic Development initiative on the Arizona 2012 ballot we need to collect a minimum of 172,800 signatures. To collect these signatures, we have signed a contract with a professional Arizona petition signature firm that charges us $1.50 to help us gather signatures from valid registered voters.

Please help us raise enough money to pay for our signature collection drive. It costs us $1.50 per signature. Donating $15 helps us collect 10 signatures. Donating $30 helps us collect 20 signatures. Donating $1,500 helps us collect 1,000 signatures. The more money we can raise, the more signatures we can collect.

Please help us, help you save money on future electric bills!

If you don't have a job right now, please call 602-326-0940 to find out how to volunteer to help us collect signatures for the "Go Solar in Arizona" initiative.

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Find a "Go Solar in Arizona" signature collection table near you:

Ahwatukee, Anthem, Apache Junction, Avondale, Bisbee, Buckeye, Bullhead City, Casa Grande, Cave Creek, Chandler, Chino Valley, Clifton, Colorado City, Coolidge, Cornville, Cottonwood, Douglas, El Mirage, Flagstaff, Florence, Fort Huachuca, Fountain Hills, Gilbert, Glendale, Globe, Golden Valley, Goodyear, Green Valley, Higley, Holbrook, Kingman, Lake Havasu City, Laveen, Litchfield Park, Littlefield, Marana, Maricopa, Mesa, Nogales, Page, Paradise Valley, Parker, Payson, Peoria, Phoenix, Prescott, Prescott Valley, Queen Creek, Safford, Sahuarita, San Manuel, Scottsdale, Sedona, Showlow, Sierra Vista, St. Johns, Sun City, Sun City West, Surprise, Tempe, Tolleson, Tuba City, Tucson, Vail, Wickenburg, Window Rock, Winslow, Yuma, and other cities and towns through out Arizona.

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