Opinion: Tucson should embrace solar power for energy security

As a former Army officer and combat veteran who led fuel convoys in Iraq, I learned firsthand how our nation’s reliance on fossil fuels can cause havoc for our military and Americans back home.

Arizona is home to more than half a million military veterans. In service in Iraq and Afghanistan, we learned a hard truth: security requires foresight, flexibility, and resilience. To put those qualities into action today, and to protect our communities and strengthen our economy, Tucson must aggressively accelerate its transition to safe and affordable clean energy. We can do this by building more large-scale solar projects to power our homes and businesses.

For the state’s veteran population, this is not a political debate. It is a clear-cut matter of state security, grid resilience, energy independence and long-term economic expansion. By harnessing the more than 300 days of sunshine Arizona receives each year, Arizona can transition from an importer of out-of-state dirty fossil fuels into a self-sustaining powerhouse. We are already behind on this front. Fortunately, there are some concrete ways we can catch up.

Projects like Sonora South Solar, now being developed as Tucson’s first utility-scale solar energy and battery storage facility, demonstrate how utility solar works in practice. The project would provide 100 megawatts of clean, renewable energy to our grid – enough to power tens of thousands of homes each year — and store the energy produced during the day in large-scale batteries for continuous nighttime use. This kind of proven infrastructure reduces our exposure to fuel prices that swing wildly during wars in the Middle East.

Our centralized power grid is heavily reliant on aging fossil fuel plants. This creates a dangerous single point of failure in Tucson. When oil and gas are expensive, utilities don’t just eat those costs – they pass them onto us. Large-scale solar installations coupled with safe battery storage, like the capacity of the Sonora South Solar and Storage initiative, offer a decentralized and smart solution.

When Arizona generates and stores its own power locally, it insulates its residents, including fixed-income veterans, from external disruptions and creates a durable and resilient grid. It also means that a failure at one single point does not trigger a cascading collapse across our entire power grid.

Beyond local security, Sonora South offers high-paying, career-defining jobs for Southern Arizonans. We have a choice in how Tucson grows. We can continue to rely on external exploitation, volatile fossil fuel markets that leave our state exposed to price shocks, and ever-increasing power bills - or we can choose self-reliance. Embracing clean energy projects like Sonora South means deciding to build a stronger, more independent Arizona.

Constructing and maintaining renewable energy and battery storage facilities requires complex project management, advanced engineering, and rigorous logistics. These requirements align perfectly with military training. Large-scale solar installations offer stable, continued, and local employment for Arizona veterans.

A clean grid is a safer grid. I urge our city leaders to approve the Sonora South Solar project, and I encourage my fellow Tucsonans to voice their support ahead of the Sept. 24 hearing before the City’s Zoning Examiner. You can send written comments by email to Tucsonrezoning@tucsonaz.gov or submit them in writing to:

Planning and Development Services Department

201 N Stone Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85726