CWEB.059/November.30.2000
The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance is in the market for new market transformation proposals that will lead to electricity savings for the region.
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An open-ended solicitation for market transformation projects officially began Nov. 30 when the Alliance launched its Unsolicited Proposals Web site. This is the Alliance's third widespread hunt for projects since the collaborative formed in 1996, but it's the first call for initially brief submittals, with no specific deadline.
The open solicitation represents a big milestone for the regional market transformation collaborative, according to executive director Margie Gardner. "I'm really excited about getting ideas off the street for things that could be really new--new products or new ways of going after energy efficiency," she said.
Alliance officials have no particular expectations about what types of projects might emerge through the open solicitation, nor have they earmarked a specific amount of money. Proposals must meet criteria established in the Alliance's strategic plan and they can't duplicate existing ventures.
A four-stage review process begins with an Alliance staff critique, and proposals that pass muster move on for consideration by an Alliance board committee and then the full board of directors.
The Alliance will also continue to pursue other new projects through targeted solicitations. "The Alliance is designing some new programs based on priority markets and opportunities and market research," said board member Liz Klumpp. "The hope is the unsolicited proposal process will bring in proposals to supplement these."
Inclusive, Flexible
Alliance requests for proposals in 1997 and 1998 led to most of the projects in the collaborative's current portfolio.
Yet these solicitations forced proposers to bring in their ideas on the Alliance's timetable, not necessarily their own, and also created substantial review work for Alliance staff, Klumpp said. With the open solicitation, "The goal is to be inclusive and flexible in receiving creative proposals, and to avoid inundating staff."
The Alliance wants a wide spectrum of proposals. "We're interested in making sure we get ideas from people out there who know they can deliver energy-efficient products and services, but who don't yet have a way to fund their effort or a partner who can help them accomplish it," said Gardner.
She cited two current Alliance ventures, MagnaDrive and BacGen, as examples of projects that came to the Alliance from outside traditional channels of regional energy efficiency professionals. The new open solicitation may lead to others. "We've certainly gotten ideas from parties that are outside of the energy industry in the past through solicitation processes," said Klumpp. The Alliance plans to market the new Web site to those parties by advertising in business and industry trade journals starting in early 2001.
The Alliance has not set a dollar amount for new projects it may fund through the open solicitation, although it won't approach the $20 million available to the collaborative annually through 2004. "We really don't" know the funding level "until we see what comes in," said Gardner. "Our goal isn't to spend the money," she added. "It's to get good energy efficiency projects."
The open solicitation is welcomed by energy efficiency businesses, according to Stan Price, executive director of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Council and an Alliance board member. He called it "a balanced approach that allows for new ideas to be considered by the staff and board of the Alliance without an all-or-nothing 'bring me a rock' RFP process." The first-cut conceptual proposals won't require "an inordinate commitment of time and resources" by proposers, while further reviews will allow proposers "to ratchet their commitment to the concept in sync with the Alliance's interest in the project.
"I certainly hope that the net effect of this new process is to bring new market approaches and new private-sector players to the Alliance, resulting in an expanded view of markets and the art and science of transforming them," Price said.
Solicitation Process
The process starts with a "proposed idea application" of six pages or less. Proposers are asked to describe their project goals and objectives, critical activities/elements, the product or service, electricity-saving method, non-energy benefits, the current regional market, market barriers, long-term market prospects after Alliance funding ends, resources brought to the project, and assistance sought from the Alliance.
Alliance staff will review each proposal, and either move it to the second phase, seek more information, or reject it.
The second phase calls for a more in-depth proposal, along with due diligence review of the project by Alliance staff. Successful proposals will then go before the Alliance board's portfolio development committee, which in turn will make funding recommendations to the full board, where final decisions will be made.
Six key criteria from the Alliance's strategic plan will form the basis of evaluation: cost-effectiveness, long-term market impact, electricity savings, geographic and customer class balance for the Alliance's entire project portfolio, and private sector co-investment.
Although the solicitation is envisioned as open-ended, boundaries could develop. "If we get too swamped with proposals, then we'll have to shut it down for awhile," said Gardner. "If we get too swamped with really good proposals and use all our allocated budget, we'll also have to shut it down. Who knows when either of those things will happen?"
Alliance board member Norm Beckert called this "a trial program" that can be changed based on experience. "It's an opportunity to reach out and do something a little bit different and see what happens," he told his board colleagues in July.--Mark Ohrenschall
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A new school in suburban Seattle has a deep green hue.
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| Photo courtesy of Kent School District |
Millenium Elementary School features a geothermal heating/cooling system, stormwater reuse, solar-energy panels, a small wind turbine, waterless urinals and assorted other resource-saving features. The Kent School District bills its newest school as a green prototype, and an excellent place to teach the environmental message to children.
At the same time, Millenium illustrates some challenges for green building. The school district considered--but ultimately rejected--a number of other environmental ideas for reasons including cost, permitting, design, operations and unproven performance. Its energy efficiencies, meanwhile, are solid though not exemplary.
Still, Millenium represents progress toward a greener future, believes Lori Moen, resource conservation specialist for the Kent School District. "The end result was a school that took steps forward, and they were significant steps," she told Con.WEB. "But they were really baby steps in the whole picture."
Green from The Start
Millenium began to take shape two years ago as the latest in a series of so-called "prototype" schools built in fast-growing Kent, a suburban community south of Seattle. The prototype approach uses a standard design with minor modifications--which saves the district substantial planning time and design fees, noted project manager Conteh Kamara.
"From the beginning, we wanted to make this an environmentally sensitive school," said Moen.
School district officials and building professionals began developing ideas in mid-1998. Sustainable building goals included resource conservation, solid-waste reduction, use of recycled-content materials, and providing a laboratory for teaching resource conservation and recycling, according to a project overview.
The list of original design concepts reveals a host of green features proposed for the new school building and surrounding site. These were subjected to cost-benefit analyses, according to Moen, after which, "A lot of stuff dropped out."
One idea was to use reclaimed toilet water to irrigate the school grounds. But this ran into health-related concerns, even with purification plans, according to project architect Bob Bryan of CMB Architecture & Planning. "That's a big issue when it comes to reusing water," said Moen. "Not only do you have to treat the water on-site, getting a permit makes it cost-prohibitive at this point."
Another concept was a "solar aquatic greenhouse" for sewage processing, which encountered similar water-treatment issues as well as the need for ongoing maintenance by an outside contractor. "We need to build a building we can maintain without any sort of special agreement," Moen said.
Many recycled-content materials also missed the cut. "What it comes down to there is we really need to test them out before we apply them to such a large project," said Moen. Recycled carpet, for example, couldn't be absolutely guaranteed to last. "Until it's really shown it's going to hold up and wear as long as the other, we're a little resistant . . . We're bound by tight budgets. It's got to last us for the 50-year life cycle we project."
Daylighting also made the list of original concepts, but with the prototype school this would have required a costly redesign. Each classroom does, however, have a heat pump that effectively mitigates the effects of solar gain or loss, regardless of spatial orientation, Bryan noted.
Green Features
Despite the concepts jettisoned during the planning phase, the $12 million school ($10 million for the building and $2 million for the site, according to Bryan) still features a number of noteworthy green elements.
The geothermal heating/cooling system takes advantage of consistent soil temperature to condition the air inside the school. It includes 84 vertical wells that run 300 feet deep, containing 1-inch-diamater tubes through which water circulates, connected in a closed-loop system to the building. A total of 49 heat pumps are attached to the piping inside the school. "In a cooling mode, you're taking waste heat in the building and rejecting it to the ground through a condenser water loop," explained Regan Corwin of Hargis Engineers, the mechanical/electrical consultant for the project. "On a heating cycle, you're taking heat from the ground via this water loop and you're putting that into the building."
There are thousands of operating geothermal installations for commercial facilities--including at least two in other Washington schools--and more than 300,000 for homes around the nation, Corwin noted.
Unlike many other geothermal systems, however, Millenium's is self-sufficient. "The benefits of this kind of a system are that you eliminate the need for fossil fuel for an auxiliary heat source, a boiler or something like that," said Corwin. "You also eliminate the need for a cooling tower in which to reject waste heat." Other advantages include reduced maintenance and chemical treatments, more simplified controls, increased space within the building and savings in materials.
Alas, the geothermal system carried a price tag about double the conventional approach: $390,000 excluding the heat pumps, according to Corwin. He estimates a simple payback period of 15 to 20 years based on current energy prices--a long time for a private enterprise, but more acceptable for a school district planning a 50-year facility. "We're pretty comfortable with it at this point. The major drawback is, of course, the incremental cost," said Moen. "If you can look at the technology over time, those upfront costs are worth your while." Millenium head custodian Michelle Page reports the new geothermal system is "working just fine . . . Basically, I think it's pretty slick--no boilers or coolers."
Another significant resource-saving feature of Millenium Elementary is the reuse of water falling onto the school site. Precipation flows into a 40-foot by 200-foot vault underneath a grass playfield. Instead of going to the local stormwater system, the collected water is pumped into an open holding pond. From there it's filtered and used to water the grounds, according to Bryan. Any overflow ends up in an adjoining wetlands. This system has sufficient storage capacity for up to about three months of irrigation needs.
Inside the school, the boys' bathrooms have waterless urinals containing a biodegradable liquid through which the urine passes. This saves 1.5 gallons to 3 gallons of water per flush, according to the school's Web site, and also eliminates odors along with airborne bacteria. These urinals cost an additional $650, but their annual projected savings of about $1,100 in water and sewer bills should pay for this feature in less than a year.
Renewable Energy, Energy Efficiency
The most visibly striking energy-related feature at Millenium Elementary is a small wind turbine mounted on a roof near the school entrance. This Southwest Windpower model, according to the school's Web site, has blades made of a carbon-fiber-reinforced composite material, along with an alternator and control electronics. Maximum output is 400 watts.
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| Courtesy of Kent School District |
On the back side of the school, atop another roof, 24 solar photovoltaic modules are creating electricity from the sun.
These are considered "proof of concept" technologies. If they work well, project manager Kamara expects the next generation of schools to expand on their use.
In the meantime, the wind and solar systems will supply power to a television in the office foyer, displaying the school's real-time energy consumption and renewable energy generation. This feature will make energy much more tangible for students, Moen believes.
On the energy efficiency side, Millenium sports occupancy sensors for classroom lighting--a very beneficial feature, noted Page, because, "A lot of people don't shut lights off in their area, even when they leave for the night." Also in place are efficient lighting (including T-8 fluorescent lamps and compact fluorescent lights in hallways, although no T-5s), lighting controls, good insulation, and sensors for volatile organic compounds that influence the amount of outdoor air brought inside. "You can, by bringing in less outside air, reduce the energy consumption in the building," Corwin said.
Yet, the lighting elements and thermal properties of Millenium aren't exceptionally efficient, Moen acknowledged. "It doesn't really provide a lot of efficiencies above and beyond code," she said, although future Kent schools might go further with the likes of daylighting, and in time perhaps even natural ventilation to minimize energy needed for air-distribution systems. "We aren't ready to make that step," she said. "It might mean moving away from a prototype."
Education
Education, of course, is the mission of Millenium Elementary, and the green features of the school are expected to provide many teachable moments, from the renewable energy technologies to the wetlands on the school grounds.
"This is a unique opportunity to the children here," principal Marilyn Godfrey told The Seattle Times. "They're going to become very conscious about our natural resources and using them wisely . . . It's a good way to start the century, I think."
Moen described the new school's staff as "very aware of how the building was built and what that environment is," and she noted teachers were hired to some extent on their environmental interests.
This educational component extends beyond Millenium Elementary and the Kent School District. The project has received considerable publicity, and many people have contacted the participants for information.
Architect Bryan thinks building green starts with a facility's owner. "It takes a strong team from the school district," he said when asked about advice for others. "Basically, the architect pretty much designs what the client wants. We do suggest things to improve, but the impetus for this particular school and most other projects comes from the owner." It also requires additional money, he noted, such as for the extensive site work at Millenium.
Project manager Kamara emphasized teamwork. "The challenge is, I think, being able to pick the right people. If you have the right team, everything will go smoothly." Another challenge lies in "taking the first step, because you're breaking ground and everybody's looking at you. Are you going to make a mistake? We proved that it's going to work. We are the front leaders, the leading edge in this particular area. Hopefully other schools are going to follow suit."--Mark Ohrenschall
A green seal of approval for retail renewable power offerings is now available in the Northwest.
Renew 2000 will certify green power products that meet criteria developed by a regional coalition of environmental groups, utilities and governments. These standards--which emphasize new renewable energy resources--are intended to give consumers more assurance on the environmental benefits of green power purchases. This should also help spread awareness of renewables and aid in marketing green power.
"It really advances renewable energy . . . in a way people feel that they're doing the right thing," said Peter West of Renewable Northwest Project.
RNP helped create Renew 2000 along with Northwest Environmental Advocates, the Northwest Energy Coalition, Natural Resources Defense Council, Bonneville Environmental Foundation, Portland General Electric, PacifiCorp, Snohomish County PUD, Bonneville Power Administration, Seattle City Light and Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative. The Northwest Power Planning Council and the states of Oregon and Washington also provided input, according to NWEA's Eugene Rosolie.
Renew 2000 is the Northwest's first green power certification program, although other such initiatives exist elsewhere, notably the Green-e standards out of California.
Renew 2000 is available for utilities and any marketers that sell green power to retail customers. At the moment, at least 14 Northwest utilities would be eligible, based on RNP's recent green power survey. PacifiCorp has already submitted its Blue Sky program for Renew 2000 certification, according to Rosolie. "I've gotten a few calls" from smaller utilities, he added, but none had formally sought certification as of mid-November.
"The test will be out in the market--whether utilities that didn't as directly participate will use the certification," said West. "What we're really trying to do is create certainty" with a set of agreed-upon standards--"the Good Housekeeping stamp of approval. Whether that'll double the [green power] market, or triple the market, or not affect the market at all is hard to say."
Green Power Standards
Renew 2000 took considerable time to put together, according to West, as the participants worked on defining green power and crafting the certification standards. He praised utilities for collaborating with environmental groups--even though these entities are sometimes at odds in other arenas. One key consideration was balancing green energy goals with product affordability.
"In terms of the standard itself, clearly the goal was to make sure whatever program was offered or certified made a difference," Rosolie said. "The focus really was on new renewables."
Renew 2000 lists the following renewable resources as eligible for certification: low-emissions biomass (including landfill gas and sewage gas), geothermal, solar, wind, fuel cells with renewable fuels, and certified low-impact hydroelectricity. For the latter, Renew 2000 will rely on the Low Impact Hydropower Institute, Rosolie noted.
The standards define new renewables as those operating on or after May 1, 1999, with a specific exclusion for 41.4 megawatts of wind-energy capacity at Foote Creek Rim in Wyoming. Certain repowerings, improvements or enhancements after May 1999 also qualify as new.
Renew 2000 establishes separate guidelines for so-called "block" and "blended" green power offerings.
In the block category, each green power unit must include at least 75 percent or 75 kilowatt-hours of new renewables--whichever amount is greater. The threshold increases to 100 percent or 100 KWh by October 2001. Solar technologies are exempt from these requirements. "What we tried to do was realize that people had already had programs up and running, and some programs consisted of existing resources," said Rosolie.
These standards also allow new renewables to be completed up to four years after a customer first pays for green power. "The future delivery of the new renewable energy should both supply the customer's current requirements--per the claims made about the certified product--and deliver sufficient new renewables to true up the customer's past consumption to meet the minimum new renewable standards of the certification program." The true-up should happen within three years after a resource is finished, with a possible two-year extension. This extended time frame addresses utility concerns about potential overbuilding of renewables capacity, according to Rosolie, who also predicted the burgeoning renewables market will minimize any such problems.
For blended green power products, Renew 2000 sets a minumum 50-percent renewables standard and 15-percent new renewables.
Renew 2000 also calls on utilities to disclose to all customers their overall fuel mix for energy resources, a practice already required under law in Washington and Oregon. Certification also requires an "active marketing program" for green power products.
The Renew 2000 certification fee is a sliding scale based on a utility's number of customers, according to Rosolie. He hopes smaller utilities will gain access to package participation deals that will reduce their costs.
Utility Perspectives
PacifiCorp is seeking Renew 2000 certification for its Blue Sky green power product, under which customers buy 100 KWh blocks for $4.75 apiece per month and the payments are earmarked for construction of new renewables, and some consumer education. "It's about as pure a product as you could have," said PacifiCorp's Bill Edmonds. The investor-owned utility has sold 4,000 Blue Sky blocks, totalling about 1 average megawatt of energy.
"To have a voice, an external voice, stamping and certifying your product is real important," Edmonds said. "It's fair to say we've had a lot of very good questions about green power from all sectors of customers," and Renew 2000 will help answer them. PacifiCorp plans to use the certification as a "key feature" in upcoming Blue Sky marketing.
One issue for the utility was the use of existing renewables versus new renewables--the latter tends to be more pricey, Edmonds said. The inclusion of qualified hydro also could help lower costs.
"We are very interested in how standards are being created for renewable resources for products we might at some point offer our customers," said Seattle City Light's Corinne Grande. She likes the push for new renewables, and the public information aspects of Renew 2000. City Light is assessing proposals it received through its recent solicitation for up to 100 aMW of new renewables, she noted, and plans to add those to its resource portfolio.
Snohomish PUD is also active in the wholesale green power market, having bought 10 MW from BPA and 5 MW from Klickitat PUD's Roosevelt landfill-gas project. "Our board's been really a big supporter of renewable resources," said the PUD's Craig Smith. "We saw [Renew 2000] as an opportunity to join with others to figure out ways to further the development."
Like Seattle, Snohomish doesn't currently offer a retail green power product, although the utility would consider it given sufficient customer demand, Smith said. The PUD also has an interest in exploring green power standards for specific renewable energy projects.
"Different utilities will take different paths toward furthering the cause of renewable resource development," he said. "We're supportive of folks doing what's best for them."
Smith called these "exciting times" for renewables. "As [power] prices go up in the region, there's an opportunity for renewables to become more competitive from a price standpoint, coupled with their environmental attributes. Hopefully, we'll continue to see more diversity of resources."--Mark Ohrenschall
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The demand side of electricity has contributed to, and could help ease, the power-supply crunch that led to skyrocketing prices this past summer, according to the Northwest Power Planning Council.
In its "Study of Western Power Market Prices Summer 2000" published in mid-October, the Council identified diminishing energy conservation as one reason behind the "overall tightening of supplies" of electricity in the West. More significantly, peak load growth far outstripped new generating capacity from 1995 to 1999. " . . . we believe the prices experienced this summer are symptomatic of an overall tightening of supply, exacerbated by a number of factors," the Council wrote. One of those is the lack of opportunities for customers to respond to high wholesale power prices by lowering demand.
Among its recommended solutions, the Council suggests economic incentives for large customers to reduce power consumption during peak load hours, along with a reinvigoration of end-use energy efficiency.
"I really think this demand-side stuff is really, really important," Council power planning director Dick Watson told Con.WEB. Watson is particularly interested in demand-responsiveness options for customers, and hopes to soon gather interested parties to further discuss this topic.
The Council also plans to update its assessment of regional energy conservation potential. It will reflect more of the value of energy savings in peak-load periods, Watson said, shifting away from the traditional notion of levelized costs determining conservation's cost-effectiveness. A preliminary rough estimate shows the average cost-effective available energy savings rising from the 1,535 average megawatts cited in the 1998 power plan to some 2,400 aMW today, according to Council conservation manager Tom Eckman.
'Unprecedentedly High Prices'
The October study focused on what the Council called "unprecedentedly high prices in Western power markets, including the Northwest" over the past summer. On June 28, the average price during peak hours nearly reached $700 per megawatt-hour (70 cents per kilowatt-hour) at the mid-Columbia trading hub. "This is more than 10 times the previous high and is consistent with the prices seen at other trading hubs in the West. Moreover, even for off-peak periods and days for which prices were not at extreme levels, they were considerably higher than past summers.
"These prices have caused some economic hardship in the Northwest," the Council reported, including industrial plant shutdowns and proposed utility retail rate increases. Washington Gov. Gary Locke and Montana Gov. Marc Racicot asked the Council to find out why prices went up so much, and suggest potential mitigations.
"The Council believes that the market prices seen this summer are a tangible manifestation of the fundamental problems identified in the Council's power supply adequacy study of last winter," the report finds. "That is, the prices are an indicator of approaching scarcity. This summer, the system, which already is facing tight supplies, has been further stressed by combinations of unusually high loads, poor hydropower conditions, and forced outages of thermal units. There is little in the way of price-responsiveness in demand to mitigate these prices . . . These factors apply not only to the Northwest but also to the entire Western Interconnected System. There were some additional factors acting this summer related to the design of the California market, but they should not obscure the basic underlying problem."
Peak loads in the Western Systems Coordinating Council grew by almost 12,000 MW from 1995 to 1999, the Council reported, while generating capacity increased by just 4,600 MW. At the moment, however, 1,276 MW of new Northwest capacity are under construction, about 3,000 MW more have site certificates, and another 3,000 MW are in siting processes. Virtually all of these are natural-gas-fired combustion turbine plants.
Demand-Side Issues
"Although we do not have data to fully substantiate this, we also believe that efforts to improve the efficiency of electricity use, i.e., conservation, have fallen off considerably in recent years," the Council report said. "This is largely the result of the uncertainty created by the restructuring of the utility industry. Utilities that were the primary vehicle for conservation development generally reduced efforts because of concerns about creating potentially stranded investment in the event that retail access results in the loss of customers, and concerns about raising rates to cover conservation costs and lost revenues."
There is some available data to verify this widely acknowledged conservation decline. Eckman said he surveyed regional investor-owned utilities a year ago and found their energy savings "dropping fairly precipitously" from the mid-1990s, in the range of 40 percent. "If you're not building conservation or generation, things get tighter," he noted.
Meanwhile, Bonneville Power Administration's latest Red Book (see related story) below shows that the agency's conservation efforts, which reaped 68.9 aMW in fiscal year 1995, dropped to 29.3 aMW in 1999.
"The Northwest has a great deal of successful experience in increasing the efficiency of electricity end-use as a resource," the Council wrote. "The region needs to reinvigorate those efforts in light of the market prices we are experiencing . . .
"However, the region in particular needs to move aggressively to implement price-responsive demand management--reducing loads during periods of high prices or shifting the loads to periods of the day when prices are less."
The Council recommends initiatives using "market-like mechanisms wherein the consumer receives a significant part of the benefit." Customers generally don't see real-time wholesale prices now, and "most have done little if any thinking about what they might do to reduce their demands if power were very expensive."
"I think it's really important," said Watson. "It's not that there's necessarily all that much of that out there, but a relatively modest amount of that at the right times can add some fairly significant effects, we think, in terms of stabilizing the market and getting rid of some of the extreme volatility."
Real-time retail prices would be the simplest way to accomplish this, according to the Council paper--but not the only one. Customers could be paid real-time prices for reducing power use at specified times. This would be a "willing-buyer, willing-seller kind of a proposition," said Watson--not a conventional interruptible contract. He thinks some large commercial and industrial customers would be open to this approach, given the right economic incentives and an ability to adjust energy consumption patterns.
"What can be done depends almost entirely on the nature of the facility, processes employed and the ingenuity of the operators," the Council wrote. Paper mills with mechanical pulping, aluminum plants, large commercial buildings with sophisticated control systems, and facilities with backup generation are all potential candidates.
Portland General Electric and BPA have recently launched demand-reduction programs, according to the Council paper. PGE has used its program to reduce loads 22 times, in amounts ranging from 30 MW to more than 100 MW, and a total of 8,300 megawatt-hours. BPA data wasn't available, but the power marketing agency met its target and plans to expand the program to 300 MW this winter and 800 MW next year.
Watson said he wants to convene representatives of utilities, large customers, energy services providers and others to explore demand-responsiveness.--Mark Ohrenschall
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The city of Portland believes energy efficiency and renewable energy can significantly help reduce local greenhouse gas emissions.
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| Courtesy of city of Portland |
Portland's draft Local Action Plan on Global Warming identifies efficiency and renewables as two of the five main components of its strategy to shrink greenhouse gas emissions 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2010--a goal established by the City Council in April. Transportation, solid waste/recycling and forestry are the other three primary categories.
Specifically, the draft document calls for a 10-percent emissions reduction from residential, commercial, governmental and industrial energy use, a goal labeled "achievable but ambitious." The renewables target is to deploy 170 average megawatts of new resources by 2010.
"It is impossible to overstate the importance of global warming," writes city commissioner Erik Sten in a letter accompanying the draft plan. "No other issue threatens our planet with such dramatic, far-reaching impacts, and no other issue is so clearly a worldwide problem. At the same time, many of the most promising solutions to global warming are local initiatives that we can control."
Sten describes a "scientific consensus" on global warming impacts, including changes in temperature, rainfall patterns, water supply, snow levels, forest health, local air quality and sea level. "We know what causes global warming, and the steps to combat it are clear: reduce the use of fossil fuels. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions doesn't have to be difficult. In almost every case, it's good for the family budget and the local economy."
Portland is seeking comments on the draft action plan by Jan. 2. Soon thereafter the City Council will consider a final version for adoption by resolution, probably along with some prospective measures for the city to take, according to Michael Armstrong of the city's Office of Sustainable Development.
Portland doesn't yet have a formal cost estimate for the proposals in the draft action plan, Armstrong said. "When it comes time to adopt it, the city's [Office of Finance and Administration] will have a look at it. They may have an estimate . . . We expect the city will do some pieces of this, equally often working in partnership with other organizations," he said. "It's hard to say how it would be shared out."
Far to Go Still
Portland's first formal crack at addressing global warming came in 1993, when the city adopted a carbon dioxide reduction plan targeting a 20-percent emissions drop below 1990 levels by 2010. "Today, seven years into the plan, we have far to go," the draft action plan reports. "Although impressive achievements in energy efficiency, transportation, recycling and tree planting have helped reduce per capita emissions, rapid population growth has led to an overall increase in CO2 emissions since 1990."
In the 1990s, total greenhouse gas emissions in Portland/Multnomah County rose seven percent--and are projected to increase more than 20 percent by 2010, according to the draft plan. "This forecast increase is due primarily to population growth and the associated increases in energy use and vehicle miles traveled. Commercial and industrial energy use, however, are projected to increase as well."
Reaching the City Council's target will actually require about a 26-percent real reduction in total emissions, according to the draft plan. "A coordinated, determined effort, however, can plausibly achieve the reductions target," noting as an example a nearly 5-percent decrease in Portland's per-capita energy consumption from 1990 to 1995 as "the result primarily of aggressive electricity conservation efforts promoted by local utilities, the state, and the City of Portland. Substantial increases in energy use between 1995 and 1999, however, reduced those gains." Also, the plan noted, per-capita transportation-related emissions shrank 2 percent in the 1990s "despite the proliferation of minivans and sport-utility vehicles."
Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy
Energy use in buildings is the major contributor to Portland greenhouse gas emissions--55 percent in 1999, according to the draft action plan. And electricity is by far the predominant source, followed in descending order by natural gas, fuel oil, propane and kerosene.
"The energy efficiency objectives are achievable but ambitious, particularly given the changing nature of the energy industry," the draft plan states. "Energy savings will be captured by implementing programs in the current integrated resource plans of Portland General Electric, PacifiCorp, and NW Natural, through programs supported by the electricity system benefit charge or other public benefits funding, and through City, State, regional, individual, and collaborative initiatives."
Portland city government should improve energy efficiency in its facilities 10 percent from 1999 to 2010, according to the draft plan. This could be attained through energy- and resource-efficient building standards, required Energy Star purchases, street and traffic light conversions, and mandated building commissioning.
Energy efficiencies in the rest of Portland can be achieved many different ways--37 are listed in the draft plan. These ideas include various programs, collaborations, city and other governmental standards, technical assistance, and other means of encouraging more efficient energy use.
On the renewable energy side, development of new renewables has not kept pace with the 1993 plan's target of 400 aMW by 2010. Wind-energy projects in Wyoming and Oregon involving PacifiCorp and PGE, respectively, have added about 10 MW of renewables capacity to serve Portland, according to the city's Office of Sustainable Development.
To meet the new target of 170 aMW of new renewables by 2010, the draft action plan calls for the city to buy new renewables for all its power needs within 10 years. The city also should look into investing directly in large-scale renewable projects.
Renewables options for the larger Portland community include encouraging electric customers to buy 20 percent of their power from renewables, establishing a "micro-energy market" allowing individuals to buy and sell renewable energy, aggregating public-sector green power purchases, expansion of Oregon's Business Energy Tax Credit to cover the higher costs of renewables, technical assistance to builders and developers, and building code revisions to facilitate renewables installations.
Reductions in transportation and solid waste, along with expanded recycling and tree-planting initiatives (the latter as a carbon dioxide sequestration strategy), also are proposed in the draft action plan.--Mark Ohrenschall
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Bonneville Power Administration's energy-saving numbers continued their downward slide in fiscal year 1999, totalling 29.3 average megawatts--the lowest since 1991--according to BPA's latest Conservation Resource Energy Data publication.
But BPA officials expect this trend to reverse in coming years as Conservation Augmentation and the conservation/renewables wholesale rate discount kick into action.
"You have to understand we've been in load-resource balance," BPA acting energy efficiency vice president John Pyrch told Con.WEB. "We cut back funding for the legacy programs, and we've not had a major conservation initiative in a number of years. What you're seeing is that ramp-down. Now with the load-resource balance shifting and the need to augment the system, we have to ramp back up . . . I think the curve will be going back up."
Pyrch also pointed out BPA's historical conservation accomplishments of 752.4 aMW saved from FY 1982 through 1999. "We've been real successful in the past and I look for that to continue," he said.
Roller Coaster Decade
The latest version of BPA's Conservation Resource Energy Data (also known as The Red Book) shows the 1990s as a roller coaster decade. Bonneville reported 19.5 aMW of savings in FY 1991, and the numbers rose to a peak of 68.9 aMW in 1995, as BPA conservation spending jumped from $91.5 million in 1991 to a high of $172 million in 1994.
Since 1995, the annual savings have dropped each year, to the 1999 figure of 29.3 aMW. That reflects BPA's considerably diminished conservation spending--from 1994's $172 million down to $32.6 million in 1999--as the agency embarked on widespread cost-cutting measures in an era of increasing competition in wholesale power.
Virtually all of BPA's 1999 reported conservation came from two sources.
Multi-sector programs accounted for 13.4 aMW, primarily from flexible spending agreements with utilities (7.5 aMW) and third-party financing arrangements (4.8 aMW). This total exceeded BPA's expected number by a factor of about three, according to BPA's Gene Ferguson. "That was because of the effectiveness of those programs," he said. "We just got so much more per dollar." Utilities gained much more latitude with BPA "flex" dollars, he noted, while the agency streamlined its oversight.
Meanwhile, energy efficiencies from improved building codes in publicly owned utility service areas accounted for 14.4 aMW in 1999. BPA takes credit for these because it promoted adoption of more energy-efficient residential and commercial building codes, mainly in Washington and Oregon. "We made an investment in building codes a long time ago. That continues to be a steady, reliable deliverer of energy savings at virtually no cost," former BPA energy efficiency vice president Terry Esvelt said in 1999. "That kind of example of market transformation is something that I think is an example for us to aspire to."
Historical Perspective
BPA's programs in the residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural sectors combined for just 1.5 aMW of savings in 1999, even though programs in those four customer sectors have historically furnished most of the agency's reported conservation savings.
From 1982 through 1999, residential programs saved a reported 179.2 aMW, commercial programs 119.2 aMW, industrial programs 90.5 aMW and agricultural programs 21.4 aMW. Savings in all four sectors have dwindled in recent years, as the multi-sector programs (primarily third-party financing arrangements and flex agreements) emerged as BPA's top conservation producer.
These programs collectively captured 514.5 aMW from 1982 through 1999.
Much of the remainder of BPA's reported savings came from more energy-efficient building codes--an additional 142.1 aMW in public-power service territories. BPA's conservation/modernization program with aluminum companies contributed another 95.9 aMW from 1987 through 1990.
As for conservation spending, the agency shelled out $1.77 billion from 1982 through 1999, broken down as follows: residential, $1 billion; commercial, $338.4 million; multi-sector, $155.5 million; industrial, $108.6 million; con/mod, $48.1 million; agricultural, $28.9 million; and miscellaneous, $86.2 million.
The Red Book warns against trying to figure out cost per energy-saving unit from its numbers, because of variations in measure lifetimes and characteristics, and differences in reported cost and savings timelines. Ferguson did note BPA's conservation cost-effectiveness has improved considerably since the mid-1980s, and especially in recent years with the flex agreements.
BPA's Red Book excludes energy savings from market transformation via the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance--to which it has been the biggest financial contributor--and from its market development activities. The numbers reflect first-year savings only, and for acquisition programs include a 7.5-percent savings credit for reduced transmission-line losses (2.5 percent for con/mod). On the cost side, BPA accounts for annual invoiced expenses for all direct costs, indirect but efficiency-related internal costs, and a share of corporate overhead. The figures do not include interest expense on conservation borrowing.
Looking Ahead . . . and Up
Bonneville expects only minimal savings from existing programs in the near future, but it forecasts an increase in energy efficiencies from other sources.
ConAug and the conservation/renewables discount will both launch in earnest next year. BPA projects 10 aMW in annual savings from ConAug in 2001 and 2002, and 15 aMW apiece in those years from the discount. Because of greater loads placed on Bonneville through its subscription process, the discount is now projected to approach $40 million annually instead of the previously forecast $30 million, according to Pyrch.
Building codes, under a medium-growth scenario, should provide 50 aMW from 2000 to 2003 in public-power territories, according to the Red Book. Low-income weatherization should result in another 4 aMW.
Bonneville has committed to meeting its Northwest Power Planning Council-established minimum goal of 166 aMW of conservation from 2001 through 2006. If achieved, that would equal an average of 33.2 aMW annually for those five years. Pyrch expects that target to rise because of the additional subscription loads.
"Long-term investment in energy efficiency provides a shock absorber for the whole system," he said. Conservation savings keep producing over time, stretch the region's energy resources, and provide a "backstop" for system reliability. And, he noted, customers by and large support conservation efforts by their utilities.--Mark Ohrenschall
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Yogi Berra said it, but I am certainly feeling it: déjà vu all over again.
The most recent case of it started this summer, when the price of electricity in the California markets hit unprecedented levels and spilled over to the Northwest, where some utility traders admitted to paying as much as $1,300 per megawatt-hour for power that last summer sold for about $20/MWh.
Then came terms that sounded so familiar . . . supply shortages . . . poor hydro conditions . . . higher natural gas costs . . . increasing demand for electricity. OK, we've heard those on and off over the years, certainly, but not since the 1980s have they been said with such frequency and conviction as during the summer of 2000.
The first time I heard the terms--and I realize I am now dating myself--was in the 1970s, when I had relocated to the Pacific Northwest from the Chicago area, home of Commonwealth Edison and Little Bill, an animated bird that was actually a light bulb: "Electricity . . . costs less today, you know . . . than it did many long years ago! Beep-beep Little Bill!!"
But in spite of Com Ed's ads, most people in Chicago heated their homes with heating oil or natural gas. And although I grew up in a middle-class family, where money was not exactly a surplus commodity, I never heard my parents tell us to turn down the heat (or, in later years, the air-conditioning) because it was costing too much to keep our four-bedroom suburban split-level comfortable.
Energy Costs as Economic Sensibilities
Not the case in Seattle, however. After migrating West in the early '70s as a University of Washington student, I moved from the dorm to off-campus housing with three roommates. The cost of energy--at that point, heating oil--was at the forefront of our economic sensibilities. We were careful to keep the thermostat as low as bearable to save money on heating our old rental home. Later, when I had graduated from college to employment and a one-bedroom walk-up on Capitol Hill, I was astonished to discover that I was paying more to heat my uninsulated little apartment with its recently installed new gas furnace than my folks were paying to heat the family home.
My early awareness of energy costs was further expanded when I worked as a Seattle-area radio reporter. I distinctly remember winters when local utilities encouraged customers to use mini-lights for Christmas decorations, rather than the old bigger bulbs, or even not to light up the holiday season at all. And then there was the press conference, seared into my memory to this day, at which then-Bonneville Power Administration administrator Don Hodel announced those first notices of insufficiency that sent the region into a real panic--as well as its first real exploration of the concept of energy conservation.
While still in radio, I interviewed Puget Power chief executive officer John Ellis and Jerry Garman of Seattle City Light to discuss their utilities' fledgling efforts at efficiency. At one point I asked Ellis why Puget had not considered conservation before. He looked at me incredulously, but politely replied it was because it didn't make any sense; it wasn't cost-effective.
But by the 1980s, it made more sense to persuade customers to buy less power than to build new power plants. Over-budget nuclear plants were biting the dust left and right. We were embroiled in the WPPSS fiasco that jump-started Clearing Up but left the region deeply in debt--and feeling stupid. So we proceeded cautiously for a while, ramping up energy conservation, developing least-cost integrated resource plans, exploring different supply options and actually building new power plants, including Colstrip Units 3 and 4, the cleanest coal plants ever built at the time--whose delivered cost of power, at 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, was for years considered the benchmark for avoided cost.
There were combustion turbines then, too. Puget Power owned the most in the region, but they were reserved for peaking if they operated on natural gas because of federal rules and regulations. These units were, for the most part, single-cycle and not all that efficient, but they ended up saving the region's rear end several winters in the '80s during the share-the-shortage heydays.
Then, miraculously, the cost of natural gas went down. Was it deregulation? No doubt this had an effect--but as a speaker at a recent conference pointed out, natural gas deregulation was driven by oversupply, not lack of resources. Suddenly, gas was flowing south from Canada at prices that hadn't been seen in years--if ever.
Power Supplies, Conservation Affected
This had a dramatic impact on the electric power supply landscape. Cheaper natural gas, along with efficiency improvements in combustion turbines, made combined cycle CTs the new darling of the industry, with costs coming in as low as 2.5 cents/KWh. At the same time, with electric and natural gas utilities merging, fuel-switching was no longer a dirty word, and more of the region's housing stock was fitted with natural gas furnaces and water-heaters.
Happy days were here, indeed--and how could energy conservation, now called energy efficiency/demand-side management, compete with power at that cost? In the minds of those responsible for procuring power at costs regulators would approve, it couldn't. Even the regulators seemed to agree, and conservation programs regionwide were scaled back and focused on market transformation.
Something about all this made me uncomfortable--perhaps my first case of déjà vu. I didn't trust prognosticators who predicted continuing low prices for natural gas, remembering too painfully well my heating bills for that first apartment. And what about supply? Even then, there were those within the industry who questioned the bottomless pit concept of natural gas supplies.
And the demise of DSM was also difficult to understand. Economics aside, what is there about using energy as efficiently as possible and eliminating waste that doesn't make logical sense? I had been working closely with a local utility's conservation department, which seemed to be the most creative and exciting place to be in the company, if not the industry, at that time. How could we let that go away?
But go away it did. And even as conservation quietly wasted away, talk of the glories of combustion turbines continued. But ironically, no one built any more of them.
Restructuring Appears on The Scene
In spite of CTs' cost-effectiveness, a new concept had come on the scene: utility deregulation, later called restructuring to allow for the fact there would always be some sort of regulation. In this brave new world, customers would be able to choose their electric supplier--a choice I didn't even know I wanted to make! Utilities would sell off their generation to new companies eager to market to me and other electricity users, large and small. The development of these new companies would create a lively, competitive marketplace, where perhaps at last electricity might become almost too cheap to meter.
But if the Northwest already had the lowest-priced energy in the nation, how would selling off our generation to new entities bring prices down for us? Especially as the initial generation resource sales in California were made at prices higher than book value. Wouldn't those new owners have to recoup those costs? And how else would they do it than through higher prices? I went to grad school; I took economics. That's how it works, we learned.
Others, apparently from the same general school, adopted a wait-and-see philosophy about restructuring. Idaho refused to even consider it; Washington dipped a toe in the water and decided the temperature wasn't right. Montana, surprisingly, went full steam ahead and right into a train wreck. Oregon is proceeding cautiously and promising it won't make the mistakes California made.
Meanwhile, Northwest utilities--conservative in the best of times--were not about to build new generation when they had no guarantee they would either, a) still be able to own it and consider it equity or, b) be able to recover in rates any of the costs of building it while restructuring lumbered along. Many also rushed to reduce their exposure to any conservation-related debts, fearful that these, too, would go unrecovered in a restructured industry.
In the meantime, while the industry was busy making (or pretending to make) restructuring plans, life continued. More people moved to the Northwest and created more load. More people bought computers and logged on to the Internet. The term e-commerce was coined. The Northwest high-tech industry exploded. And Canada built big fat pipelines to move natural gas from British Columbia and Alberta eastward to--Chicago! My hometown!
Here We Are . . . Again
So here we are. Déjà vu once again: it could just as easily be 1975 as 2000. Gas costs a comparative bundle, energy supplies are tight, and we are scrambling to figure out what to do.
This time around, the really unfortunate fact is that we knew what to do to prevent this; we just didn't do it. It's too late to point fingers or try to assign blame. And it may be too late to do anything to avoid power disruptions in the coming months, if we have a combination of cold weather, unit outages and/or transmission interruptions.
But is it too late to get angry--or at least frustrated--at this latest round of regional shortages and lack of appropriate action? Let's admit it; we all saw it coming.
Yogi Berra also said, when you come to a fork in the road, take it. We didn't. So here we are . . . déjà vu all over again.--Jude Noland
The Walla Walla County Regional Planning Commission on Nov. 8 unanimously approved FPL Energy's request for a conditional-use permit for its Stateline Wind Project, allowing construction to start on the 250- to 300-megawatt-capacity wind-energy facility.
Stateline is to be built on agricultural land in Walla Walla County in southeastern Washington and in neighboring Umatilla County in Oregon.
Active construction will begin the first week of January, according to FPL Energy consultant Bob Kahn. Construction of about 15 percent of the project will be delayed until after a bird impact study can be conducted next spring--per an agreement with the Blue Mountain Audubon Society, which supports the project.
In addition, construction of the Oregon portion of Stateline cannot get under way until the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council approves the project.
About 350 wind turbines are planned for the Washington side of the border and an additional 150 are anticipated in Oregon. The project is scheduled to be operating by the end of 2001.--Jude Noland
The 16.8-megawatt-capacity wind Foote Creek IV wind project began commercial operations Oct. 2, according to developer SeaWest WindPower.
The 28-turbine facility in southeastern Wyoming provides electricity to Bonneville Power Administration, which also purchases power from two other wind farms in the same vicinity.
The Foote Creek Rim site between Laramie and Rawlins now has a total installed capacity of 84.75 MW, according to SeaWest.
A new Web-based expo featuring energy efficiency service providers has been created by Bonneville Power Administration and worldWEBexpo.com.
Energy Expo 2000 is intended to link consumers interested in cutting energy costs with providers of energy efficiency services, in a sort of "virtual trade show where consumers and energy services providers can take the first steps to doing business together," according to a BPA news release.
"BPA sees a strong connection between better access to energy efficiency information and the achievement of energy improvements," said Bonneville's Jennifer Eskil. "Going on-line with energy efficiency opportunities was a natural step given the increasing role the Internet is playing in commerce. We think the Energy Expo 2000 is one way to use the Internet to promote energy efficiency."
Service providers can use the expo to display their products and services, while consumers can visit to learn about energy efficiency opportunities.
The new service is sponsored by ABB, Automatic Switch Co. (ASCO) and MagnaDrive Corp.
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The city of Seattle has received the annual Conservation Eagle Award from the Northwest Energy Coalition. The award, presented in late September, recognizes the city's Earth Day 2000 resolution to meet growing demand for electricity without adding to global warming, according to a NWEC news release. Seattle pledged to use energy conservation and renewable energy to meet load growth in its service territory to the extent possible.
"I'm thrilled Seattle is being honored for our actions to decrease the pollution that causes global warming," said City Council member Heidi Wills. "The city's goal is to serve our residents 100-percent green electricity."
The city of Seattle has honored 11 organizations for completing Climate Wise action plans in 2000.
Achievement Awards were presented at an Oct. 23 Climate Wise Forum at Seattle Center to Associated Grocers, Lake Union Drydock, Pepsi Bottling Group, Seafreeze Cold Storage, Pike Place Market, Seattle Public Schools, GM Nameplate, Seattle Goodwill, Production Plating, Naval Submarine Base Bangor and Seattle Center. Seattle City Council member Heidi Wills gave out the awards.
Many of the Climate Wise accomplishments recognized at the forum centered on energy efficiencies. Associated Grocers, for example, has saved 5.8 million kilowatt-hours of electricity since 1992 through efficiencies in controls, lighting, compressor cooling, and evaporator equipment. "All in all it's a great project," facility manager Ray Gooding of the wholesale cooperative told the 70-plus attendees at the forum. Beyond energy, he noted that variable-speed drives for evaporator fans improve temperature control, and consequently, "We think we have a better product."
The forum also included a talk by Richard Gammon of the University of Washington on the science of global warming. "We're in it; we better begin to prepare for it as well as mitigate it," he said, citing a "95-percent certainty" that rising average global temperatures in recent years are beyond the scope of natural fluctuations.
Separate discussion groups were held on resource cost assessment, waste reduction and recycling, green power, energy management services and regional collaboration.--Mark Ohrenschall
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Curt Nichols of the city of Portland's Office of Sustainable Development, Energy Division, has been honored as 2000 Energy Manager of the Year by the Association of Professional Energy Managers.
Nichols "effectively serves as the City's energy manager," according to a Portland news release. "He oversees energy efficiency improvements throughout the city" as manager of the City Energy Challenge program. Since the program's creation in 1991, Portland has documented more than $6 million worth of cumulative energy savings.
Nichols' award came in the government category, one of three national awards given by APEM at its October national conference in southern California.
Nichols began working for Portland in 1992, and has managed the Businesses for an Environmentally Sustainable Tomorrow (BEST) and the Portland Partners for Energy Efficiency (P2E2) programs. Nichols also serves on the Regional Technical Forum.
A new listserv provides e-mail updates of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance's Energy Star Residential Lighting program.
The updates highlight regional program activities, as well as information on national Energy Star lighting activities and industry updates.
The listserv is available to anyone, especially utility program managers and lighting retailers and manufacturers. Sign up at http://www.lightsite.net/listadd.html.
For more information, contact David Weigel at ECOS Consulting: phone, (503) 525-2700, ext. 105; e-mail, dweigel@ecosconsulting.com.
Two Native American colleges in the Northwest have received funding awards from the U.S. Department of Energy "to study the feasibility of installing renewable energy technologies and integrating this work into educational curriculums," according to a DOE news release.
Stone Child College in Box Elder, MT, will "monitor and assess renewable energy data collected on the proposed site of new college buildings." Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, WA, will "determine the technical and economic feasibility of various renewable energy technologies for the site and develop education and outreach programs based on this information," DOE reported.
Five other Native American colleges will also receive funding awards from a total pool of $700,000.
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