Common Goals, Forward Momentum 

What a difference a focused organization like TREO can make.

Paul Bonavia is president and CEO of UniSource Energy and Tucson Electric Power Company, and Chair of the TREO Board of Directors. He came to Tucson just two and a half years ago. But in the short time he’s been here, he’s seen a remarkable change in the way the region addresses economic development.

“There is just a feeling of coming together,” Bonavia says. “People are uniting.”

This is especially true in the solar industry, something that pleases Bonavia. “Tucson is a natural for solar. Tucson is branding itself as the solar capital, but early on people wondered if we would chase solar energy away,” he said. There was a fear that, through the lack of consensus and a unified vision, Tucson would drive solar companies away to other markets.

But, Bonavia said, Tucson is coalescing around solar and he believes this will be a huge boon to the region. This is evidenced, he said, by the Pima County Board of Supervisors’ recent 5-0 vote in favor of the SunEdison (formerly FRV) solar project. The 25-megawatt array will sit on 305 acres of former farmland in the Marana area and will be Southern Arizona’s largest solar generating project to date. Tucson Electric Power will purchase the energy output from the system. Construction begins this fall, and is estimated to create 250-300 short-term jobs.