PSE Newsroom
Puget Sound Energy Files Updated Energy Strategy with State Regulators
Integrated Resource Plan stays focused on energy efficiency, wind, natural gas
BELLEVUE, Wash., July 30, 2009 - Heightened energy efficiency, the development of more renewable power and additional natural gas-fired power generation are the linchpins of Puget Sound Energy’s newly updated strategy for meeting customers’ growing energy needs.
The utility’s 2009 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), filed today with the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission, guides the company’s efforts for acquiring new energy resources in the most cost-effective and environmentally responsible manner over the next 20 years. PSE revises the plan every two years with an updated forecast of customer energy requirements and exhaustive analyses of the economic, environmental and technological issues involved in securing new energy supplies.
Despite the current economic slump, PSE’s updated resource plan continues to forecast long-term growth in the utility’s 11-county service area. Approximately 1 million more Puget Sound residents will be relying on PSE service 20 years from now, the IRP predicts. Regional growth, together with the potential retirement of aging power plants and expiration of large purchased-power contracts, is driving PSE’s need to secure about 5,000 megawatts (MW) of additional power capacity over the next two decades, according to the IRP.
“Our challenge is not only to meet our customers’ growing energy needs in an economically prudent way, but in a way that protects our planet as well,” said Kimberly Harris, executive vice president and chief resource officer for PSE. “Our resource plan takes the right approach with more energy efficiency and renewable resources, augmented by more clean-burning natural gas generation.”
PSE’s already ambitious energy-efficiency programs should be expanded even further, the 2009 IRP says, to cost-effectively “generate” even more new energy supplies. In 2008, the utility’s energy-efficiency programs helped customers save electricity equivalent to the power usage of 23,000 homes, and enough natural gas to serve the need of 4,000 homes. PSE customers are expected to save about $30 million annually over the life of the energy-efficiency steps taken in 2008.
The 2009 IRP calls for even greater energy efficiency. More than 530 average-MWs of additional power savings can be achieved over the next 20 years, according to the resource plan. Those savings, sufficient to meet the electricity requirements of 400,000 households, would forestall the need to build four average-sized natural gas-fired power plants. The plan also identifies 90 million therms of achievable natural-gas savings by PSE customers, enough to satisfy the total gas needs of 108,000 households.
The new energy-efficiency targets represent 22 percent and 30 percent increases, respectively, in the electricity and natural gas efficiency goals cited in PSE’s 2007 IRP.
The 2009 IRP also underscores PSE’s commitment to developing more renewable-energy resources, primarily wind power. Today, PSE’s Hopkins Ridge Wind Facility, in Southeast Washington, and Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility, in Central Washington, make the company the second-largest utility producer of wind power in the United States, according to the American Wind Energy Association. The two wind facilities have a combined generating capacity of 386 MW. Their annual energy output is sufficient to serve the total power needs of 100,000 homes. A 44-MW expansion of Wild Horse, now underway, is scheduled for completion in late 2009.
The IRP identifies a PSE need for another 1,100 MWs of wind power by 2029. The expansion would ensure PSE compliance with Washington’s Energy Independence and Security Act (Initiative 937). The voter-approved law requires large utilities to obtain 15 percent of their power supply from renewable resources by 2020. PSE is currently working to develop the Lower Snake River Wind Energy Project in Southeast Washington’s Garfield and Columbia counties. The PSE initiative proposes as much as 1,432 MW of new wind power to be built there.
Other forms of renewable energy, such as solar, biomass and geothermal, may have long-term potential if they can be developed cost-effectively on a utility scale, the plan notes.
Aggressive energy-efficiency measures and increased renewable-power resources together could provide about 40 percent of the added power supply PSE will need to acquire over the next two decades, the IRP states.
Nearly all of the company’s remaining power-supply acquisitions will involve natural gas-fired power, the plan states. That is because economic, political and environmental considerations virtually preclude the development of new hydro, nuclear or coal-fired power resources in the region.
The updated IRP also projects a significant increase in demand for natural gas, both to generate electricity and to serve gas customers’ direct energy needs. PSE customers’ peak wintertime use of natural gas is expected to jump by more than 38 percent over the next 20 years, while peak gas usage for wintertime power generation is predicted to rise by 108 percent.
To address the long-range need for more natural gas, the 2009 IRP recommends that PSE secure more natural gas pipeline capacity into the Northwest and more natural gas storage resources. The IRP advocates a detailed PSE study of the best options for boosting pipeline capacity.
PSE develops its resource plan in consultation with customer representatives, consumer advocates, Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) staff members, and others. The entire 2009 IRP can be viewed at PSE.com.
About Puget Sound Energy
Washington state’s oldest local energy utility, Puget Sound Energy serves more than 1 million electric customers and nearly 750,000 natural gas customers in 11 counties. A subsidiary of Puget Energy, PSE meets the energy needs of its growing customer base through incremental, cost-effective energy conservation, procurement of sustainable energy resources, and far-sighted investment in the energy-delivery infrastructure. PSE employees are dedicated to providing great customer service and delivering energy that is safe, reliable, reasonably priced, and environmentally responsible. For more information, visit www.PSE.com.
Contact information:
Puget Sound Energy
Roger Thompson, 888-831-7250