Opinion: After Prop. 421's defeat, Tucson should pursue a publicly owned electric utility

Tucson voters delivered a clear message on Tuesday. Proposition 421 failed, with, as of Friday evening, 56.7% voting no.

Tucson Electric Power spent $4.3 million in an effort to win a 25-year franchise. The campaign had the support of the mayor, the City Council, the Southern Arizona Chamber and the Democratic Party. It still lost. TEP spent about $63 for each of the 68,279 yes votes it received. I’m of the opinion that voters did not reject electricity, they rejected a utility they no longer trust to put Tucson first.

The question now is what comes next. Tucson can keep renting its power from a company whose shareholders live in Canada, or it can own its energy future.

Start with the money. The Canadian-owned TEP reported $283 million in net income in 2025. That is money drawn mostly from Tucson ratepayers . Under public ownership, that same $283 million a year becomes the down payment on a solar city. It can fund rooftop and parking-lot solar, battery storage and grid upgrades, and it can return savings to the families who pay the bills.

Now consider the water. TEP’s own reported records show it drew 4.6 to 4.7 billion gallons of water in 2022 and 2023 to cool its generators. In a desert watching the Colorado River shrink, that water cannot be replaced. Solar panels make electricity without consuming water. A solar-powered Tucson would significantly reduce that draw and leave the aquifer for homes, farms and future generations.

Consider the air we breathe. Fossil-fueled generation sends millions of tons of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere each year, along with the heat and pollutants that settle over our neighborhoods. Retiring TEP’s two Springerville coal units and replacing them with solar and storage could eliminate between millions of tons of carbon dioxide annually. Cleaner generation also means fewer respiratory irritants for our children, our elders, and anyone who has struggled through an August ozone alert.

Solar can also shade us. Our planning-level analysis of Tucson and Pima County parking lots estimates that covering qualifying lots with solar canopies could support roughly 2,200 megawatts of solar and 4,400 megawatt-hours of battery storage. That output would generate about 4,250 gigawatt-hours a year, close to half of TEP’s current generation, without bulldozing new desert. Those canopies would shade cars, cool pavement and lower cooling loads for the buildings beside them. Every shaded lot is a small act of climate defense.

Public power already works elsewhere. Sacramento’s municipal utility has delivered reliable, clean power for decades. Phoenix’s publicly owned utility, the Salt River Project, has built large-scale solar while keeping rates competitive. Tucson can learn from them and set a higher standard.

Imagine the Tucson that could emerge within a decade. Rooftops and parking lots hum with solar. Neighborhood batteries keep the lights on during heat waves. Many of our public schools already host solar arrays that teach our kids how the sun can power the city. Electric buses run quietly through our streets. Savings from the former shareholder profits return to families. Our water stays in the aquifer, our skies carry less carbon, and our city draws its strength from the sun that defines us.

Tucson should not wait for the next drought declaration or emergency conservation order to act. The City should commission a parcel-level solar survey, open negotiations for acquisition, and set a firm date for a publicly owned TEP. Voters have said they do not trust the current arrangement. Now they should be invited to build the alternative.

We track every gallon of water we drink. We should track every gallon our power plants pull from the desert and every ton of carbon they release. Then we should decide, together, to build something better.

Tucson has the sun, the land, the people and the vision. Let’s make Tucson the solar city of the future.