Washington state is taking pains and bold steps to cut carbon emissions, as climate change accelerates. Those laudable goals are now challenged as new demands for electricity are surging. That growing paradox — a higher load with a lower supply to meet it — will send energy costs higher for residents around the state, and worse, holds the potential for blackouts if the electricity grid is overwhelmed. Leaders must double down on development of green energy sources to maintain grid reliability.
Soon to be on Gov. Jay Inslee’s desk is a hard choice. He can follow a state agency’s recommendation to cut the state’s largest proposed wind and solar farm in half, potentially killing the whole project; or reject its conclusion and send it back to the agency with recommendations to revise it. His decision on the Horse Heaven Clean Energy Center in Tri-Cities will be a signal to developers of other such projects and will set the tone for whether Washington can build bold renewable energy projects.
A just-released forecast shows the Northwest’s grid, comprising four states including Washington, will need 30% more electricity in the next decade to meet expected demand — the highest level of growth in 40 years. That’s the equivalent of supplying power to seven new Seattle-sized cities, according to the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee, which compiles its forecast from utilities around the region.
There are numerous causes for the surge: The state’s decarbonization efforts are shifting residents and businesses from gas for fuel and heating to electric sources, as a way to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions. New demands, including energy-thirsty data centers that power AI, are also steepening the growth trajectory from 23,700 average megawatts today to more than 31,100 in 10 years, the report projects. This says nothing of heat waves and cold snaps, which will push the grid and its power producers to meet even higher peak loads.
In response, Washington’s lawmakers have two choices: use policies and funding to help utilities develop new power generation and transmission, including wind and solar projects; or slow the mandated removal of certain legacy power plants, including hydroelectric and fossil fuel-emitting sources. Failure to act will result in a Northwest power grid that cannot keep up with the demands placed upon it.
Five years ago, the Legislature enacted the Clean Energy Transformation Act, mandating the end of all fossil fuel sources by 2045. The state‘s remaining coal-fired power plant in Centralia will power down in 2025. More than 4,000 average megawatts of on-demand natural gas-generated electricity will go offline by that target date. Power operators already are forgoing some maintenance and improvements to plants expected to close, according to Kurt Miller, executive director of the Northwest Public Power Association.
Northwest tribes and others also have increased calls for the removal of hydroelectric sources, including the four Lower Snake River Dams, which threaten endangered salmon. Doing so would further diminish the sources of supply to the grid.
The forecast says new grid resources are nowhere up to the task of meeting the anticipated rise in demand. Public opposition can slow and even halt large generation projects. Enter the $1.7 billion clean energy project in the Horse Heaven Hills that Inslee will soon review. The state Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, a state board, recommends cutting the project’s scope in half following a litany of complaints. Inslee has the final say.
The threat the turbines posed to the endangered ferruginous hawk was the “linchpin” for EFSEC to limit the project, according to a Seattle Times story. The Yakama Tribe said the project would defile sacred lands. The Council voted 5-2 to ensure a 2-mile buffer around the turbines for the hawk. The CEO of the company that planned it fears the move may kill entirely what was a plan to generate about 1 gigawatt of power.
States are banning green energy projects faster than they can be built, according to a recent USA Today analysis. It revealed that at least 15% of counties around the country have used bans, moratoriums and other impediments to halt wind and solar projects.
A fully built-out Horse Heaven still would add less than 5% of the total clean-energy capacity Washington needs in about a decade. If Inslee approves EFSEC’s pared-down recommendation, there will be even more pressure to clear the way for other such projects elsewhere in the state. Other challenges, including how to surmount the shortcomings of wind and solar intermittent generation, remain.
Energy demands are rising fast. State policies are reducing supply for goals, and new generation sources aren’t built fast enough.
This paradox threatens a nightmare for the grid, its operators and power users, commercial and residential. Utilities around the state will have no choice but to import power from elsewhere, resulting in higher costs to consumers, or, worse, to power down parts of the grid, known as rolling blackouts, until power is available.
Shopping for higher-priced electrons on the wholesale Western electricity market could include the very fossil fuel power sources Washington is working to power down. Not all states share Washington’s visionary climate goals, after all.
State leaders, including Inslee and his successor, must act urgently to approve clean energy projects that meet the needs of surging load growth. The choices those leaders make today will determine whether Washington leads on green energy, or if its efforts on climate are merely virtue signaling at a great cost to the state’s residents.
Correction: This editorial was corrected to accurately reflect Gov. Jay Inslee’s options for approving the Horse Heaven Clean Energy Center project. He can sign off on a state agency’s decision to halve the original project; reject the decision and return it to the agency with recommendations for revisions; or reject entirely the project’s application.
