Power needs to rise after 2013

KALISPELL, MONTANA - Energy analysts say there's enough electricity to power the Pacific Northwest for the short term, but after about 2013 an increased need for electricity begins to chip away at supply.

“The Northwest is in good shape for the next five years,” said Bill Booth, “but as demand for power grows, our cushion to meet periods of high demand shrinks.”

Booth chairs the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, a multistate agency tasked with balancing the need for affordable and reliable power against the needs of resident fish and wildlife.

Booth stressed that the council's finding “does not mean we will run out of power, but it's an issue that the region's utilities will have to address as they plan for the future.”

The council is urging regional utility companies to plan new power plants and encourage more energy conservation, in order to insulate consumers against power-price spikes in a notoriously volatile wholesale market.

Already, many electricity providers are investing in new plants - especially solar and wind plants - as part of state-mandated renewable resource requirements.

The council reports annually on regional power supplies, and this year announced a good-news, bad-news scenario. The immediate future holds little risk of energy shortages, but predicted increases in demand - especially during summer months - will shrink reserves substantially by 2013, Booth said. The annual analysis is intended as an early warning system, should supply fall behind demand. And while the council is urging more power plant development, members stopped short of defining how many and what kinds of plants should be built. Those details are expected in the council's upcoming five-year power plan, to be completed next year.

The current power plan, released in 2004, indicated the region would need about 5,000 additional megawatts of production in the coming two decades. Of that, about half - enough to power a city the size of Seattle for two years - was recommended to come from energy conservation rather than new plant construction.

And in 2007, electricity producers and wholesalers predicted a gust of wind power development in the coming two decades, adding perhaps 6,000 megawatts to the regional grid by 2024.

Related News

The Haves and Have-Nots of Electricity in California

PARADISE, CA - The intentional blackout by California’s largest utility this week put Forest Jones out of work and his son out of school. On Friday morning Mr. Jones, a handyman and single father, sat in his apartment above a tattoo parlor waiting for the power to come back on and for school to reopen.

“I’ll probably lose $400 or $500 dollars because of this,” said Mr. Jones, who lives in the town of Paradise, which was razed by fire last year and is slowly rebuilding. “Things have been really tough up here.”

Millions of people were affected by the blackout, which…

READ MORE
solar panel on roof of home

High Natural Gas Prices Make This The Time To Build Back Better - With Clean Electricity

READ MORE

docked ferry

By Land and Sea, Clean Electricity Needs to Lead the Way

READ MORE

downed trees and power lines

Hurricane Michael by the numbers: 32 dead, 1.6 million homes, businesses without power

READ MORE

power lines

Power firms win UK subsidies for new Channel cables project

READ MORE