I travelled to Monterrey, Mexico late last week to speak at the Border Energy Forum, an event which invites all border states and Mexico to participate in a discussion about how we can best import or export our energy resources. Texas arranged the event and are active players in this discussion, but Arizona is a new comer and we must see that change. From solar to wind to natural gas, we must collaborate with our neighbors both in the states and abroad to make meaningful progress in advanced energy. My take away is that Canada has many gigawatts of connection to our domestic grid but Mexico has less than 1% of the Canadian/US interconnection to export or import electricity. Why have we neglected our relationship with Mexico as a trading partner while moving so aggressively to buy and sell with Canada? Arizona borders Mexico and it is time to show leadership like Texas to open up this energy market for the benefit of all Arizona ratepayers. We may be able to profit from exporting our excess power to Mexico so the AZ utilities could lower our rates here in AZ. Novel thought but Mexican rates are 3X higher than Arizona rates so why not sell into Mexico to make money and save Arizona rate payers some money? We have done so with California for decades so why not trade with our southern neighbor whose rates are higher than California rates.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 13:00:00 +0000