By Salt River Project
The SRP Board of Directors voted to approve the first phase of a multi-phase continued development project at SRP’s Copper Crossing facility to create the “Copper Crossing Energy and Research Center.” The current site houses a 20MW solar facility that provides energy to SRP customers.
The continued development will feature generating resources needed to support and enable SRP’s transition to a lower carbon resource portfolio, including advanced solar technology, two flexible natural gas turbines – each with an output of less than 50MW – and small-scale, long-duration energy storage technologies.
The first phase of continued development of the Copper Crossing facility will add two flexible natural gas turbines on SRP-owned land adjacent to the existing Abel Substation on West Judd Road and the Copper Crossing Solar Ranch on West Bella Vista Road in Florence. A series of 69kV poles, lines and infrastructure will connect the new facilities to the existing Abel Substation. SRP management anticipates site preparation for this project may begin as early as October 2022.
On Aug. 23, the SRP Board’s Power Committee unanimously voted to recommend the approval of the first phase of the project to the full SRP Board. Prior to this meeting, SRP re-notified landowners and residents near the Copper Crossing facility about the proposed project and invited them to provide comment at the SRP Committee and Board meetings.
The two flexible natural gas units being added to the Copper Crossing Energy and Research Center will be used primarily to serve spiking energy demand during the hottest days of the year and as backup units to renewable resources. This type of generation differs from baseload generation, as the Copper Crossing turbines will not run for many hours per year, and as such, will not use much fuel and will be cost efficient.
The proposed second phase of continued development at Copper Crossing is to add advanced solar generation to the site, which will be voted on by the SRP Board in late 2022. The third phase is to develop small-scale, long-duration energy storage which will go to Board vote in early 2023.
Additional development phases of the site may be proposed later. These phases could continue to explore various resources such as solar, storage, additional flexible natural gas turbines, or other resources SRP may need that best fit its system needs and requirements in the transition to a more sustainable resource mix.
The project website is available here.
