California's transportation sector represents its largest share of greenhouse gas emissions, but an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom aims to change that while also creating opportunities for economic growth and manufacturing in the Golden State.
The Bureau of Reclamation has issued a request for proposals to develop pumped-storage hydroelectric power using Banks Lake and Lake Roosevelt, located in Grand Coulee, Wash.
Wildfires continued to rage in Washington and Oregon on Sept. 11, as utilities hustled to restore power to areas that had been shut off, where and when it was safe.
A U.S. DOE study touting the potential benefits of retrofitting PacifiCorp's four coal-fired power plants in Wyoming with carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies is being panned by Wyoming environmentalists, landowners and the utility.
Developers want to build one of Washington's biggest wind farms about 10 miles southwest of Benton County PUD's headquarters. However, the utility hopes the Horse Heaven proposal stays on the drawing board, because it officially opposes further wind development in the Pacific Northwest to se…
A lower 20-year load forecast has Puget Sound Energy considering scrapping two solicitations for new resources.
California's electricity-generation future includes adding record amounts of solar generation and battery storage each year over the next 25 years, while keeping the majority of natural gas generation resources in use through 2045, state agencies said.
California's rolling blackouts and price spikes have caused financial damage to at least one Northwest utility, and raised concerns about the integrity of the California ISO's wholesale market.
The Northwest Power Pool's reserve contingency sharing and interim resource adequacy programs helped prevent Northwest blackouts during the recent heat wave.
Clean energy will provide about half of the demand across the Western Electricity Coordinating Council region by 2030 and as much 80 percent by 2050, based on current state mandates and goals set by cities, counties and utilities, according to analysis by the Northwest Power and Conservation…
Fleets of new renewable resources, fewer thermal-fired resources and California's voracious energy demand will drive midday prices on the Mid-Columbia spot market into negative territory by 2041, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council's preliminary price forecast for its 2…
Officials with the California ISO have provided more details on the steps they took during power shortages starting Aug. 14 that led to rolling blackouts.
A change in how PacifiCorp models dispatching its coal fleet, and benefits from the federal production tax credits associated with adding 1,350 MW of new wind resources, could help lower PacifiCorp's rates in Oregon by 3.8 percent.
The Northwest Power Pool's development of a regional resource adequacy mechanism crossed an important milestone when NWPP announced Aug. 11 the Southwest Power Pool will design the region's resource adequacy program.
Idaho Power told Oregon and Idaho regulators in July that its updated 2019 integrated resource plan, expected to be filed in October, will not include any update on ownership changes for the proposed 500 kV Boardman-to-Hemingway transmission line.
A team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and Exxon Mobil have developed a new material able to more effectively and inexpensively capture carbon dioxide emissions from natural gas power plants for eventual reuse or sequestration.
A nearly 600-mile transmission line and more than 800 MW of new solar-plus-storage resources could be coming to Nevada if regulators there approve a July 20 proposal from NV Energy.
NorthWestern Energy is exploring developing a new green product for customers tied to a specific renewable energy resource.
Fourteen of Washington's 17 largest utilities met the state's higher renewable energy requirement, which jumped from 9 percent in 2019 to 15 percent for 2020.
PacifiCorp on July 7 released a request for proposals seeking 4.3 GW of renewable energy and battery storage, the largest RFP in the utility's history and one of the largest calls for renewables in the industry.
Portland General Electric's battery storage strategy is gaining momentum as the utility prepares to launch a residential battery storage pilot program.
The Washington UTC has limited rate increases for Puget Sound Energy's electric and natural gas customers, while allowing the investor-owned utility to amortize and defer other expenses, in an attempt to reduce the economic impacts on customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Northwest could have a fully implemented resource adequacy standard as early as 2024, if everything goes according to plan.
Washington's investor-owned utilities are beginning to reshape their generating portfolios to meet the state's Clean Energy Transformation Act, and to fill capacity deficits left from the loss of the Colstrip Generating Station.
The developers of the proposed 1,200 MW Goldendale pumped-storage project on June 23 filed a final license application, and asked FERC to acknowledge that it qualifies for "expedited treatment" under the recently passed America's Water Infrastructure Act of 2018.
The City and County of Missoula reached an agreement with NorthWestern Energy to work together on several sustainability issues, including utility-scale renewable energy projects.
A study released June 17 by a coalition of West Coast utilities envisions a chain of 27 electric-charging stations along Interstate 5, and eventually at major adjoining highways, to help facilitate adoption of medium- and heavy-duty electric trucks.
The trend toward natural gas heating could be flattening or even ending, according to the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance's Commercial Building Stock Assessment 2019 report, released in May.
Federal agencies are winding down their annual spring juggling act of water, fish and power, as this year's spring spill operations featured a record of amount of water spilled over federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.
When Grant County PUD applied in 1955 for a federal license for the Priest Rapids Projects, there was no market premium for carbon-free resources. So when Grant PUD agreed to compensate owners of the upstream Rock Island Dam for any generation lost due to the downstream Priest Rapids Project…
California's grid operator issued its latest proposal for a series of major changes to its day-ahead wholesale electricity market, an initiative aimed at helping to integrate growing levels of solar and wind generation.
In response to increasing runoff and high levels of wind generation lowering market demand for hydropower, BPA curtailed more than 3,000 MWh of wind in early June and asked the 1,207 MW Columbia Generating Station nuclear plant to load-follow.
Tying rates to volumetric sales increasingly fails to align with the reality of the electric power sector, according to Joe Schwartzenberger, NorthWestern Energy's director of regulatory affairs.
When BPA on May 19 asked Energy Northwest to reduce the output of its 1,207 MW Columbia Generating Station in southeastern Washington to 65 percent, and to return the nuclear plant to full output on May 25, it was the first time this happened under a new flexibility agreement signed in July.
The best-case scenario in Tacoma Power's next draft two-year budget is a 3.5-percent decline in retail revenue over three years, according to the municipal utility. The worst case is a 12-percent decline that persists over two biennial budgets, a total of four years.
The coronavirus pandemic so farappears to have had little effect on aggregate energy demand for the Northwest, but may have shifted around the hours of consumption, according to an analysis of preliminary federal data compiled by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
Puget Sound Energy, Washington's largest natural gas distribution utility, is now one of the biggest buyers of renewable natural gas (RNG) in the region.
A five-year contract with Douglas County PUD in Washington will allow Portland General Electric to continue chipping away at its near-term capacity deficits.
The Oregon PUC took a surgical approach to PacifiCorp's 2019 integrated resource plan by acknowledging some items in the utility's action plan and putting conditions on others.
Curtailments of solar generation in the California ISO grid are up dramatically so far in 2020, and even more so since shelter-in-place orders took effect, but the impact is not clear-cut and more factors are in play, according to a recent expert panel discussion.
A century ago, engineers scoured the upper Skagit River searching for bedrock to site three dams.
Alcoa is shuttering its Intalco Works smelter in northwest Washington, citing declining market conditions and first-quarter 2020 losses of $24 million for the plant, the company said in its April 22 quarterly earnings release.
After a months-long search, Douglas County PUD hired Hydrogenics Corp. to construct the first renewable hydrogen production facility in the Northwest.
Residential solar development in Oregon continued its steady trek upward in both Portland General Electric and PacifiCorp service territories in 2019.
Stay-at-home orders to fight spread of the coronavirus pandemic have lowered demand for several Northwest utilities, according to early data, but the effects could become more severe if isolation orders are extended and the economy continues to falter.
Washington's climate agenda has been set back by the mounting expense of the coronavirus pandemic, sweeping off the table some bills and policies passed during the 2020 legislative session that adjourned only four weeks ago.
The Columbia River is flowing smoothly nearly six months after the last vestige of the Mid-C Hourly Coordinating Agreement—which coordinated power generation among Chelan, Douglas and Grant county PUDs—expired.
Umatilla Electric Cooperative has asked the Oregon PUC for permission to build a 4.3-mile, 230 kV overhead line in Morrow County to support future load growth.
Puget Sound Energy announced March 24 that it signed a power purchase agreement with Energy Keepers, the tribally owned corporation of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, for 40 MW of hydroelectricity from the Selis Ksanka Qlispe hydroelectric project in Montana.
The region's supply of natural gas should remain plentiful and prices low through 2020, despite the economy slowing down, according to the Northwest Natural Gas Association's 2020 Gas Outlook.
Hosted by the Oregon Citizens' Utility Board, the 10th annual CUB Policy Conference takes place online on Friday, Oct. 16. This conference is designed to educate energy and utility policy analysts, attorneys, advocates, regulators, and others working in and around the energy industry. Learn … Read more
Come to GridFWD 2020, a virtual event on grid modernization with dozens of sessions scheduled from Oct 6 to Oct 15. Participate in Interactive group sessions led by energy industry leaders across three themes: Resilient Systems, Adaptable Models, Empowered People. Sit in on live podcast reco… Read more
Join NWHA and NHA for a virtual workshop that focuses on a cross-section of topics relevant to the the hydropower industry in the Northwest. Topics this fall include national and regional hot topics, legislative updates, tools to communicate around hydropower and energy imbalance markets upd… Read more
For your convenience, NewsData has compiled a list of the acronyms we utilize throughout the Clearing Up Publication. Read more
