Energy executive orders aren’t just for the highest office in the land as Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs [D] showed with a Monday, Sept. 15 press conference signing Executive Order 2025-13. The order intends to curb Arizona families’ ever increasing electrical bills and meet growing demand from datacenters and growth by creating the Arizona Energy Promise Taskforce to create a statewide energy plan, and within the next 30 days streamline energy development on state land.
“With all the growth we’re experiencing, Arizona utilities estimate significant energy needs over the next 15 years, with peak demand expected to increase by a whopping 40%,” Hobbs said.
The state’s largest utility provider Arizona Public Service set a new all-time high energy demand of 8,631 megawatt hours on Thursday, Aug. 7, this is the third consecutive year the company set a new record during the summer months.
APS rates for customers are similarly increasing with the company requesting the Arizona Corporation Commission make residential customers pay an additional 16.44% on their electricity bill using the ACC’s Formula rate plan process. The process, approved in December, allows utilities to seek annual rate increases as opposed to the typical two to three year process. The commission’s last approved rate increase was 8% in 2024.
“When we talk about affordability, it’s not abstract. It’s about whether families can keep their homes safe, cool and livable,” Executive Director of Wildfire, a statewide anti-poverty nonprofit, Kelly McGowan said. “In 2024, nearly 13% of Arizonans were living in poverty, and far more were struggling to make ends meet. Census data shows that almost two thirds of households have trouble paying their basic expenses, and one in five can’t fully pay their energy costs.”
The Arizona Energy Promise Taskforce will be chaired by Maren Mahoney, the director of the Governor’s Office of Resiliency and will be made up of members of the public and private sectors along with experts and consumer advocates. By Sunday, March 1 the group is to create a “strategic policy framework to facilitate data center and other large load customer growth” and minimize “impact to ratepayers,” the order reads, with the Arizona State Land Office told to deliver a similar report within 30 days.
“This executive order sets a clear strategic framework to support continued manufacturing growth, reduce barriers to new energy projects and make sure we can keep powering the
plants, factories and data centers that are coming here,” President of the Arizona Building and Construction Trades Council Jeff Holly said. “Let me be clear, building more power plants [means] more union jobs for our members.”
Data centers in Arizona currently use 6.2 megawatts a year accounting for 7.43% of the states total electricity consumed. That could increase to 16.6 annual megawatts and 16.58% of the state’s total electricity by 2030, according to a report by the Electric Power Research Institute in 2024. The report cited Arizona’s low risk of natural disasters and solar electricity as opportunities for the state but noted the challenge is “water scarcity [and the] need for sustainable cooling solutions.”
“Today’s executive action is the right thing at the right time. Arizona needs every possible electron as soon as possible to help satisfy the demand for power that’s happening now and into the next decade,” NextEra Energy Resources Vice President Jim Shandalov said.
The taskforce is also assigned to write a” generation and transmission corridor strategic plan that identifies areas to cut red tape in regards to the lease, sale or other use of state lands and another plan on emerging technologies including nuclear and geothermal.
All state agencies are also directed to create a plan to reduce their energy consumption by 5% by June 30, 2027. Agencies are also to look for opportunities for electric vehicle adoption, support tribes in their energy independence, support business effected changes to federal policy.
“This Executive Order comes at a critical moment,” a press release from Hobbs’ office reads. “Recent federal actions, including the repeal of clean energy tax credits and new obstacles delaying the deployment of solar and wind projects, have put jobs and energy developments at risk.”
Those changes by the federal government the order cites as putting 151,122 energy sector jobs and $104 billion in private investment in Arizona at risk, and potentially increases “energy costs for Arizonans by an estimated $280 per household per year by 2035.”
Hobbs’ potential Republican challenger in her 2026 reelection campaign, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs [District 5], weighed in on the order on X, formerly known as Twitter on Tuesday, Sept. 16.
“Don’t be fooled by this: Katie Hobbs is trying to stick Arizonans with more unreliable energy sources like solar and wind that will drive up costs on Arizona families and businesses,” Biggs posted. “Arizonans cannot afford Katie Hobbs and her Green New Deal policies.”
Businesswoman Karrin Taylor Robson has also declared her campaign for the Republican nomination, both candidates have been endorsed by U.S. President Donald Trump.
“We aren’t going to let bureaucracy and red tape hold our economy back and increase costs,” Hobbs said. “We’re going to bring back common sense and do and do away with unnecessary busy work that’s too often forced on clean energy developers and while the federal government attacks energy development, putting ideology over common sense, we’re stepping up to help.”
