Clean Energy on the Way

By Arizona Alumni Magazine

Winter 2023

This intricate interactive display featuring iconic campus edifices — among them Old Main, Arizona Stadium and the Stevie Eller Dance Theatre — celebrates the University of Arizona’s clean-energy partnership with Tucson Electric Power, formed in July 2021. Creative Machines, a local firm that also designed and built playful, instructive public art at the Children’s Museum in downtown Tucson, authored the installation, which will be transferred every six months to a new stopping point along the route for prospective-student tours.

In the display, golf balls in Wildcat red and blue roll along steel tracks, symbolizing clean energy flowing from TEP’s Oso Grande Wind Farm in southeast New Mexico and its Wilmot Energy Center solar-plus-storage system south of Tucson. The clean-energy agreement is expected to cut the university’s carbon footprint by a third over its 20-year duration.

University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins in front of the display

University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins speaks during the unveiling of the display, on the south side of the Student Union Memorial Center, on Friday, Sept. 9.

University Boulevard sign inside the display

Every part of the ball machine was made by hand.

Balls in the display pass through campus landmarks.

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