With the coal era winding down and renewable energy sources rapidly growing, Arizona offers an attractive market for renewable energy facilities, with plenty of sunshine and even a bit of wind up north. And, despite what you may have heard about our, umm, colorful politics, historically Arizona has been largely supportive of renewable energy, at least with regard to utility-scale projects. Arizona also obviously offers proximity to large markets in California and Texas. That’s the good news.

The less-good news is that the prevalence of federal and tribal lands can complicate efforts to site generating and transmission facilities, given the usual overlay of federal laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). That said, if your point of reference is California, you’ll wonder why we think Arizona can be a challenge...