Over One Year Stalled, Six Weeks to Approval: How TotalView Helped Move the Nation's Largest Wind and Solar Complex Project Forward

When the wind and solar complex on Babbitt Ranches north of Flagstaff was proposed, it was the largest wind and solar project in the country. It also failed to launch, stalled for over a year. Opposition had brought the project to a standstill, and the conversation kept circling the same questions without the data to answer them.

Then Quantum Energy’s analytics entered the conversation. Six weeks later, the project was approved.

A recent feature in Flagstaff Business News, “The Value of 2.8 Gigawatts in Renewable Energy,” covers the analysis behind that turnaround. Our CEO Daniel Howard, Ph.D., and COO Andrew DeMille presented TotalView’s findings on the full portfolio: 2,000 MW of solar, 784 MW of wind and 3,000 MWh of battery storage. We modeled its hourly generation and measured how it would change grid dynamics and power plant emissions across the region. The results gave stakeholders what they had been missing:

• $1.8 billion per year in quantified public health and environmental benefits.
• More than 5,000 years of life saved annually through reduced particulate matter emissions.
• An 85% increase in annual solar generation across the Southwest power market, alongside nearly 2,000 GWh of new wind and a sharp drop in natural gas generation.
• Near-zero curtailment, with battery storage shifting daytime generation to evening peak demand.
• Measurable protection for at-risk local species from cleaner air, water and soil.

With those numbers on the table, the discussion changed from whether the project might cause harm to how much good it would do. Billy Cordasco, President and General Manager of Babbitt Ranches, described the shift:

“Quantum’s TotalView Energy Platform is a game-changer in renewable energy. As counties require quantitative support, Quantum has empowered us to proactively shift the paradigm, providing the crucial information needed for permitting decisions. The missing link had been a lack of data to calculate long-term impacts and make informed decisions. Quantum has helped us bridge that gap.”

— Billy Cordasco, on behalf of the Babbitt Ranches Community

Babbitt Ranches shows what happens when developers, landowners and communities share one evidence-based picture of a project’s impact. When stakeholders can see what a project delivers for their health, their environment and their economy, good projects get built, and they get built faster.

Read the full Flagstaff Business News article here.