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Last year, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council released its Sixth Power Plan, finding that the Pacific Northwest could meet 85 percent of its growth in electricity demand over the next 20 years with improved energy efficiency. A startling conclusion you think? Not really. The region has a remarkable record of success in efficiency achievements, thanks to the passage of the Northwest Power Act.

A great innovation of the Act was to include energy efficiency as a resource. It’s specified as the first priority resource, and it’s given a 10 percent cost advantage for planning purposes. Second in priority are renewable resources, followed by high-efficiency generation like combined heat and power applications, and finally other generating resources.
 

Since the Council’s beginning over thirty years ago, the region has saved over 4,300 average megawatts of electricity--enough to power the state of Idaho and Montana for a year. And since 1980, efficiency has met half of the region’s electricity demand, precluding the need to build 10-12 new coal or gas-fired power plants. Because consumers didn’t have to buy 4,300 average megawatts of electricity in 2009, they paid $2.3 billion less for electricity--even after accounting for the cost of energy-efficiency programs in their electric rates. It also means less carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere--19 million tons less in 2009 alone. Major sources of efficiency were found in home weatherization, improved efficiency in lighting, irrigation, and industrial motors.

For the Sixth Power Plan, the Council estimates that the potential efficiency resource is nearly 6,000 average megawatts. Combined with what’s already been acquired, it amounts to over 10,000 average megawatts, surpassing the amount of energy produced by the Columbia River hydrosystem.

A detailed analysis of efficiency in hundreds of applications found that the technical potential had increased thanks to advancing technology, reduced costs, and estimates in new areas like electricity distribution systems, consumer electronics, and street, parking lot, and exterior building lighting. The costeffectiveness of these technologies has also increased significantly because avoided costs have doubled and carbon-cost risk is several times higher than when the last plan was completed.
In terms of impact on the environment, energy efficiency is projected to reduce carbon emissions by 17 million tons per year by 2030, a 30 percent reduction from 2005 levels. Failure to achieve this efficiency would also increase both the cost of, and risks to, the power system, and probably prevent Washington and Oregon from meeting their legislated carbon-reduction goals.

Aggressive pursuit of energy efficiency is the primary focus of the power plan’s actions for the next five years. Combined with investments in renewable generation required by state renewable portfolio standards, improved efficiency will help delay investments in more expensive and less clean forms of generation until the direction of future climate-change legislation becomes clearer and alternative lowcarbon energy technologies become cost-effective.

Remaining new energy and capacity needs should focus on natural gas-fired generation until more attractive technologies become available. New coal-fired generation is not part of the plan’s resource strategy. In fact, meeting the region’s carbon reduction goals called for in some state, regional, and federal policies will mean relying less on existing coal plants.

The plan also encourages research in advanced technologies for the long-term development of the power system and investments to add transmission capability and improve operational agreements. Other future resources could include geothermal, ocean waves, tides, gasified coal with carbon sequestration, advanced nuclear or currently unknown technologies. New methods to store electric power, such as pumped storage or advanced battery technologies may enhance the value of existing variable generation like wind. According to the plan, the region should explore a diversity of potential future generation and energy-efficiency resources.




While the future is never certain, we in the Northwest have undoubtedly benefitted from the prescient law passed more than a generation ago. It set forth a new approach to planning for our energy needs and it established a clear list of priorities to that end. But more than that, it also suggests a vision, rooted in the insistence that our prosperity is also defined by the richness of the natural world; that we are part of it, and bear responsibility for its preservation. Its emphasis on both--the environment and energy--is a signal commitment. And the key tool at hand, the first priority to sustaining both? Energy efficiency.




Bill Bradbury
Before 1980 - TV news reporter - KGW Portland, KVAL Eugene, KCBY Coos Bay 1981 on Public service- St. Rep, St Senator, Secretary of State


by Bill Bradbury, Northwest Power and Conservation Council
Issue #465 / April 2011


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