Can the Washington state meet its mandate to find alternative energy
sources?
The first target is a year away, and no one is clear how to meet
it, or even to measure progress. The legislature could tweak the
2006 law that created the requirement, but previous attempts have
hit political walls.
Washington's voters declared in 2006
that 15 percent of the state's electricity must come
from alternative sources — wind, solar, biomass and
others — by 2020.
The interim targets are 3 percent by Jan. 1, 2012,
and 9 percent by 2016. So how will anyone know whether
those targets are met? And what will happen if they are
not? With the first deadline just over a year away,
Washington officials have begun scratching their heads
about how to answer those questions.
"No one is sure how this one will quite play out,"
said Howard Schwartz , a senior policy analyst at the
Washington Department of Commerce.
State audit manager Jasen McEathron, who is in charge
of finding a way to ensure compliance by publicly owned
utilities, said: "It's going to create some challenges.
... It's a new area for us."
While the Secretary of State's office will monitor
publicly owned utilities, the Washington Utilities and
Transportation Commission will track investor-owned
utilities, and the state's Commerce Department will keep
tabs on two electric power cooperatives. The Secretary
of State's office and the other state agencies say they
plan to work out a mutually agreeable monitoring system
in 2011.
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State of Idaho
Wind turbines like these
in Idaho generate only 2 percent of the Northwest's
energy.
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Overall, 17 power utilities in Washington are
covered by Initiative 937, which passed with 52 percent of the vote in
2006. Under the law, any utility with more than 25,000 customers must
comply. The law's purpose is to cut down on the emission of
greenhouse gases by generating more electricity from renewable
resources.
At least 20 states plus Washington, D.C., have similar laws on their
books. The only other Northwest state with such a law is Montana, which
has to hit the 15 percent mark by 2015.
In 2006, the initiative's supporters included numerous environmental
groups, the Washington Public Utility District Association, the state
Democratic Party, Republicans for Environmental Protection, some labor
organizations, the League of Women Voters, U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and
Maria Cantwell, plus U.S. Reps. Jay Inslee, Adam Smith, Norm Dicks, and
Jim McDermott.
Opponents included the Washington Rural Electric Cooperative
Association, even though most of its members are too small to be
affected; Peninsula Light Co.; some individual electric cooperatives;
the PUDs of Benton, Franklin, Cowlitz, Lewis, and Mason counties; the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, plus nine Washington-based chambers of
commerce, including several major Puget Sound ones; the Washington Farm
Bureau; and Weyerhaeuser, Boeing, and Boise Cascade.
Despite the legislation's seemingly ambitious goals, the law provides
a backup plan for the 17 utilities that must meet the upcoming 3 percent
goal: They are allowed to buy and sell
renewable energy credits. Washington utilities falling short of the
3 percent, 9 percent, and 15 percent targets will be able to buy credits
from renewable power sources elsewhere in the Northwest. Those renewable
energy credits are expected to be a significant factor in enabling some
Washington utilities to meet their targets.
Right now, averaged across a year, roughly 23.7
percent of the Northwest's electricity comes from coal, natural gas and
nuclear power, according to the Washington State Department of Community
Trade and Economic Development. The department's 2009 Biennial Energy
Report (scroll
to Page 34 of the report here) estimates that almost 73 percent of
the region's power comes from hydroelectric dams — ironically considered
"renewable" in other states, but not so in Washington under
I-937. Another 2 percent comes from wind power, and the rest comes from
a mishmash of other sources. Solar power is so small it doesn't register
on the state's breakdown.
A significant portion of Washington's wind power is currently sold to
California, while this state hangs on to its cheaper home-grown
hydropower. California has a legal target of obtaining 20 percent of its
power from renewable resources by 2017. When 2012 arrives, much of
Washington's wind power is expected to be kept in this state to enable
its utilities to reach their 3 percent targets.
To understand the lopsided nature of how Washington's energy is
generated, consider these numbers: The Bonneville Dam near Portland can
produce 1,050 megawatts of power at maximum capacity, and the Columbia
Generating Station nuclear reactors can provide 1,150 megawatts. By
contrast, 454 wind turbines near Walla Walla can create just 104
megawatts. A proposed major solar power site near Cle Elum would produce
a maximum 73 megawatts.
Hydropower also is currently the cheapest resource, at $60 per
megawatt-hour, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation
Council's
Sixth Northwest Conservation and Electric Power Plan. But there is
little likelihood of building new dams, and limits exist on how current
ones can be tweaked to improved production, the council said.
Wind power costs $89 to $129 per megawatt-hour. But
its production is erratic because it depends on winds blowing. Puget
Sound Energy (PSE) has two wind turbine complexes and a third on the
drawing board. The two existing ones generate electricity 30 to 35
percent of the time, said PSE spokesman Roger Thompson.
Solar power costs roughly $280 per megawatt-hour, the Northwest
Power and Conservation Council report said. Construction of at least
two new Washington solar power plants are in the works — one in the
mountainous forest near Cle Elum, where sunlit days occur slightly
less often than the national average, and another at the Hanford
nuclear reservation, near sunnier-than-average Richland.
The Northwest power council reported that several other
alternative power sources produce a small fraction of 1 percent of
the Northwest's electricity, with little potential for major growth.
Tidal energy from Puget Sound is still in the experimental stage.
Washington's legislature is allowed to modify initiatives
beginning two years after they pass. But the state Senate and House
have tried twice, without success, to tinker with I-937.
In both the 2009 and 2010 sessions, utility interests wanted more
flexibility to avoid spending on higher-priced alternative energy
sources, which they said would increase rates for customers. But
environmental interests would accept those modifications only if the
target percentages also would be increased, washingtonstatewire.com
reported in February.
Neither side would budge, and the original initiative has stayed
intact.
"It's an enormously complicated issue," Erik
Poulsen, lobbyist for the Washington Public Utilities Districts
Association, told
washingtonstatewire.com. "We are wrestling with the question of
whether the benefits of the bill are worth the price of a bump in
standards."
Ed Brost, general manager of the Franklin County Public Utility
District, described I-937 to washingtonstatewire.com as a
"windfall for wind power act."
Meanwhile, washingtonstatewire.com quoted environmental leaders
in the the 2010 legislative session as fearing that the utilities
and business interests might water down energy conservation and
efficiency measures in the initiative. It also quoted them as
contending that a rebounding economy could make the utilities'
economic predictions less dire over the next few years.
Danielle Dixon, senior policy associate for the Northwest Energy
Coalition, which backed I-937, said, "I'd be very surprised if it
does not come up again in the next session."
State Rep. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, chairman of the House
Technology, Energy and Communications Committee, said he would
"probably" introduce a bill early in the 2011 session, to address
some financial concerns utilities have about Initiative 937. "There
may be some wrangling. But I don't think it will be as contentious
as before," McCoy said.
However, State Sen. Phil Rockefeller, D-Kitsap County, chairman
of the Senate's Environment, Water and Energy Committee, recalled
previous I-937 legislative debates, when consensus was blocked by
wildly competing views on how the initiative should be tweaked.
"There are always rumblings and grumblings, Rockefeller said.
"But I don't hear a strong unified voice."
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