Salt River Project (SRP) has invested $2.9 million in 37 research and development projects with Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona in an ongoing effort to support the reliable delivery of power and water to SRP customers. Every funded project is assessed for alignment to SRP’s long-term corporate goals and strategic objectives.
The projects are at various stages of research and development, including ones starting this semester and those in late-phase testing. SRP has invested in university research for more than 40 years and has seen lasting impacts from the joint research programs. Beginning in 2019, SRP funded a two-year project with NAU that aimed to broaden participation in the energy industry. This project led to the development of a new course, which will be offered to students in the Fall 2025 semester. Several projects with U of A resulted in a seasonal streamflow forecasting tool that has been fully adopted by SRP’s Surface Water team. This tool helps SRP operate the reservoirs to prepare for late winter floods and plan for hot and dry summer conditions.
“Investing in research and education is an investment in SRP’s future and the future of the Valley. We are supporting students, engaging them to think critically about SRP’s innovation challenges and helping SRP prepare for the future,” said Chico Hunter, Innovation and Development Manager, SRP. “This program has seen several successful projects become operational at SRP, and the research these students are doing at every stage is impactful for our industry.”
All project proposals are evaluated by individual SRP project advisors, as well as management and internal subject matter experts from relevant areas of the company. SRP will work on 22 projects with ASU, 4 projects with NAU, and 11 projects with U of A.
SRP is using AI to detect the causes of power outages and support grid reliability by partnering with ASU to assess outage causes more quickly and accurately, with enough detail to help engineers make smart, cost-effective decisions about maintenance and reliability improvements; the work complements SRP’s effort to establish a holistic reliability strategy for the distribution grid.
To map future wildfire risk and impacts in Arizona amid climate change, SRP is working with the University of Arizona on a “Wildfire Risk Assessment” tool that uses machine learning to forecast risk through 2050 and evaluate potential effects on communities and SRP’s water and power systems—data that will strengthen infrastructure, improve planning, and support community resilience.
To monitor the impacts of forest thinning projects, a long-term NAU research effort is measuring the water benefits of thinning in post-wildfire woodland areas of the Verde watershed; now in its third year, the project supports SRP’s forest health goals with on-the-ground results.
To optimize the sizing of solar and battery systems, SRP and ASU are evaluating whether battery energy storage systems are cost-effective for commercial customers in SRP’s Business Demand Response programs, with findings to inform a potential BESS pilot and continued field validation on payback and system sizes; the project is in its fourth phase.
To explore atmospheric water harvesting at SRP power plants, SRP and ASU will test technologies that capture nearly salt-free water from air at ASU and SRP generating sites, analyze performance, and estimate potential production—early-stage work that could support SRP’s 2035 Sustainability Goals for facility water-use reduction and conservation.
