Pacific Gas & Electric was still restoring power Oct. 11 to more than 800,000 electricity consumers it shut off due to high-fire-risk conditions, increasing public rage against an already unpopular utility and bringing regular daily life to a halt across a large swath of Northern California.
PacifiCorp would close 16 of its 24 coal units, add nearly 7,000 MW of new renewable energy and build 400 miles of transmission line over the next decade to accelerate decarbonizing its system, according to its draft 2019 integrated resource plan.
A lack of dispatchable resources will leave the Northwest with a capacity deficit of several thousand megawatts over the next few years that could spiral into widespread outages unless a regionwide mechanism for addressing resource adequacy is developed.
Klickitat County PUD officially opened a waste-to-energy renewable natural gas plant at a landfill in Roosevelt, Wash., giving new meaning to the cliche, "One man’s trash is another man’s treasure."
The California PUC on Sept. 12 proposed a delay in once-through-cooling (OTC) compliance deadlines for natural gas-fired power plants to address what could be a capacity deficit of up to 2.5 GW in 2021-2023, and said there is a need for additional energy procurement by load-serving entities …
A sense of urgency filled the room at the California ISO's headquarters in Folsom Sept. 18, as officials warned of extremely tight generation capacity beginning next year.
Seattle City Council unanimously voted to implement an ambitious package of environmental, economic and social policies dubbed a Green New Deal.
PacifiCorp continues to see dramatic savings from early retirement of some of its coal-fired power plant fleet and switching to renewables and natural gas, in modeling for its 2019 integrated resource plan.
Higher output from hydroelectric, wind and solar resources pushed down the cost of serving wholesale load in the California ISO area by 11 percent in the second quarter, compared with the second quarter of last year, CAISO's Department of Market Monitoring said.
The Southwest Power Pool on Sept. 9 announced commitments by three regional utilities to join its Western Energy Imbalance Service Market as charter participants.
Power planners across the Northwest know wind turbines, which account for about 14 percent of the region’s installed capacity, won’t generate much, if any, power to meet demand during heat waves. The same is generally true during winter cold snaps, when wind output plummets along with tempe…
The region's most ambitious energy storage pilot project is a step closer to launching.
PacifiCorp will dial back the output from Jim Bridger 1 and 2, rather than install pollution control equipment needed to comply with Wyoming's regional haze implementation plan.
The California ISO on Sept. 3 gave FERC its latest round of enhancements aimed at better integrating energy storage and distributed energy resources (ESDER) onto its grid.
Battery storage would help reduce electricity demand charges most effectively for commercial customers with solar power systems and narrow, "peaky" loads, according to a new report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Large commercial and municipal customers of Portland General Electric gobbled up the first offering in the utility’s new Green Future Impact program, mirroring the popularity of corporate renewable energy buying programs around the region and the country.
Tacoma Power has signed an implementation agreement with the California ISO for joining the Western EIM, targeting 2022 for going live in the market.
A pilot program aimed at commercial customers wanting to invest in intermediate-sized solar arrays was approved Aug. 15 by the Seattle City Council’s Housing, Health, Energy, and Workers’ Rights Committee.
One of the region’s oldest wind facilities is about to get a makeover and a new lease on life.
Climate change will be the baseline for scenarios in the 2021 Northwest Power Plan, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Future resource planning by Puget Sound Energy and Portland General Electric seem to signal that the long-awaited promise of Montana wind power may finally come true.
Renewables dominated proposals submitted to Puget Sound Energy’s 2018 all-resource solicitation for new generation resources. Only a handful of natural gas resources were even submitted, according to information PSE provided to Clearing Up.
A bill setting voluntary renewable natural gas goals for Oregon’s natural gas utilities and allowing them to recover prudent costs incurred in pursuing the gas was recently signed into law by Gov. Kate Brown.
Portland General Electric could be on a major resource acquisition spree over the next few years that would further decarbonize the utility’s generating portfolio, according to the company’s 2019 integrated resource plan filed with the Oregon PUC July 19 [LC 73].
A flaw in the modeling of coal-mine reclamation costs associated with the Jim Bridger power plant has pushed back the release of PacifiCorp’s 2019 integrated resource plan from “August 1 to no later than October 18,” the utility said in a filing with the Oregon PUC.
Portland General Electric announced July 15 it has officially launched the nation’s most ambitious smart grid pilot program.
Members of Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems have inked contracts for more than 150 MW from the small modular reactor plant UAMPS plans to build at the Idaho National Laboratory, triggering continued work and evaluation of the project, the agency announced July 17.
Solar generation and transmission capacity are the initial additional resources identified for offsetting early coal capacity retirements in the preferred portfolio of Idaho Power’s 20-year 2019 integrated resource plan.
Southern California Gas Co. over-reported natural gas emission reductions by about 8 million therms in 2017, according to a July 2 consultant report to the California PUC.
A formidable jump in the price of natural gas in California ISO territory in the first quarter drove up the cost to serve wholesale load by 43 percent compared with the first quarter last year, CAISO’s market monitor said in a new report.
Electric vehicles have proliferated in Seattle, and their adoption rates are expected to increase in coming years. As part of its effort to address the infrastructure challenges and load growth this represents, Seattle City Light has launched two electric vehicle charging pilot programs as p…
All but two of Washington’s 17 eligible utilities plan to meet the current 9 percent mandate under the state’s RPS for 2019, and all but one appear to be on track to meet their two-year conservation targets, according to plans submitted to the state’s Commerce Department.
Electrification and Natural Gas Decarbonization: Opportunities and Challenges for the Pacific Northwest Electric Utility Industry Read more
The Friday, Nov. 8, event in downtown Portland is designed to educate energy and utility policy analysts, attorneys, advocates, regulators, utility staff and others working in and around the energy industry. Read more
