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December 16, 2004
PORTLAND, Oregon — The Northwest Power and Conservation Council
today approved the latest version of its Northwest
Power Plan, the fifth plan since the Council was created in 1980.
The new plan, developed in the wake of the West Coast energy crisis of
2000/2001, is designed to help the region’s utilities and electricity
consumers take steps in the future to avoid the shortages and high
prices that characterized the energy crisis.
“The primary message of the power plan is a familiar one from the
Council: energy conservation is the lowest-cost, lowest-impact resource
to meet our future demand for electricity,” Council Chair Judi
Danielson of Idaho said. “In fact, our plan shows that the Northwest
can meet almost half of the predicted growth in demand for power over
the next 20 years by using electricity more efficiently.”
The plan calls for securing 700 average megawatts of conservation
over the next five
years. “This amount of conservation is optimistic, but achievable,”
Danielson said. “It is less than the annual conservation achievements
in the Northwest between 1991 and 2002, and about two-thirds of it is in
new measures or applications.”
While the plan primarily affects the Bonneville Power Administration,
which is required by law to take the plan into account in decisionmaking,
the plan is based on state-of-the-art risk analysis and also provides
guidance to the region’s electric utilities, state regulatory agencies
and even to electricity consumers. “If we fail to achieve the
conservation in the plan, the cost of electricity, and the risk of
shortages and high prices would increase in the future. That’s because
providing an equivalent amount of power from new generating plants would
be more expensive and our demand for power would increase,” Danielson
said.
The Fifth Northwest Power Plan calls for the development of over
2,500 average megawatts of conservation over the next 20 years, which is
the statutory length of the Council’s energy-planning horizon.
Converted to electricity, that is enough to power the city of Seattle
for two years. The Council’s analysis shows that getting this
conservation in place reduces cost and risk for the region, and costs
less than the least expensive new power plants.
The conservation potential exists in a variety
of places, but primarily in lights, motors, and heating and cooling
systems. Of the 2,500 average megawatts of cost-effective conservation,
46 percent is in residences, 39 percent is in commercial buildings and
equipment, 12 percent is in industrial processes, equipment and
buildings, and 3 percent is in irrigation equipment. Many of these
sources have been identified just in the last five to eight years,
including power supplies for cordless telephones, computers, answering
machines (155 average megawatts of savings), packaged refrigeration
appliances such as soft drink vending machines (70 average megawatts of
savings), and municipal water and sewage treatment equipment (80 average
megawatts of savings).
The plan analyzes the current and anticipated demand for power and
recommends when to acquire conservation and build generating plants. In
addition to the 700 average megawatts of conservation over the next five
years, the plan recommends completing wind power plants that are under
construction or planned for construction. The plan also recommends that
utilities and their largest customers investigate demand-response
agreements, through which the customers agree to reduce their
electricity usage during power-supply emergencies — extreme cold or
hot weather, for example — in return for some form of compensation.
The plan estimates that 500 megawatts of demand response could be
contracted over the next five years and be ready if needed in the
future.
Finally, the plan recommends that work begin in the next few years to
prepare for the construction of new power plants. In addition to the
wind generation already committed for the region, the plan foresees the
possibility of up to 5,000 megawatts of wind turbine capacity with
construction beginning as early as 2010. The plan also puts the region
on the track toward clean coal technology — efficient, low polluting,
gasified coal power plants, with construction beginning as early as
2012. Because a number of new power plants fueled by natural gas were
constructed in the Northwest in the wake of the 2000/2001 energy crisis,
and because the price of natural gas is volatile and difficult to
predict, the Council does not anticipate that new gas-fired plants will
be built until late in the 20-year planning period.
The Council is an agency of the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and
Washington and is directed by the Northwest Power Act of 1980 to assure
the region an adequate, efficient, economical and reliable power supply
while also protecting, mitigating and enhancing fish and wildlife of the
Columbia River Basin affected by hydropower dams.
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