Land Development

With the country’s greatest solar radiation, Arizona is commonly referred to as the “solar capital” of the United States. In fact, its endless amounts of sun and available land could produce enough electricity to meet the needs of the entire nation! Soil temperatures are often way above 60 degrees, and its plentiful undeveloped land offers the opportunity to export its excess power to neighboring states.

Although most associate Arizona with dry, desert land, more than 27 percent constitutes forest land, specifically ponderosa pine, a resource for the biomass industry. The high flat plains of northeastern Arizona also provide the strongest and most reliable winds in the state. Additionally, the region offers ample available factory space for production, available land for utility-scale solar farms and an array of existing suppliers of chemicals and electronic materials.

Along with Greater Phoenix’s aggressive standards for distributed energy generation, its renewable energy zones are abundant. Arizona has nearly 2.5 million megawatts of solar capacity, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory ranks Arizona as the number one state for solar.