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THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2021
RENEWABLE ENERGY
COORDINATING A NORTHWEST GRID
By PETER FAIRLEY
InvestigateWest
March of 2019 opened
with a deep chill across
Cascadia. Arctic air poured
south, jacking up energy
consumption and straining
energy supplies in Oregon,
Washington state and British
Columbia. It conjured a per-
fect storm for the region’s
electricity grid.
As temperatures plum-
meted, Cascadia’s hydro-
power reservoirs sat at
record lows following weak
fall rains and an exception-
ally cold winter. Mechanical
trouble had halved output
from the Centralia, Wash-
ington, coal-fi red power
plant — the largest genera-
tor between Seattle and Port-
land. A low-pressure weather
system was hampering Cas-
cadia’s wind farms. And
maintenance work on lines
in Los Angeles limited the
amount of power that could
fl ow north.
Utilities appealed to cit-
izens to conserve energy.
Industries cut back as power
prices spiked. And the grid
held.
Utility offi cials call it
a near miss and a sign of a
new normal. “We really had
a very close call,” says Scott
Bolton, senior vice presi-
dent for transmission devel-
opment at Portland-based
Pacifi Corp.
“Future events could have
direct impacts to the reliabil-
ity of the bulk power sys-
tem,” concluded an assess-
ment by Western Electricity
Coordinating Council, the
utility consortium that over-
sees reliability for the inter-
connected transmission net-
work west of the Rockies.
Sharing renewable elec-
tricity across long distances
is among the most cost-ef-
fective strategies for slash-
ing carbon emissions, as
InvestigateWest reported in
April. Longer power lines
with centralized control cen-
ters increase grid fl exibility
to carry high levels of wind
and solar power.
A robust network would
allow utilities to tap diverse
sources. If inconvenient
weather zaps Cascadia’s
power supply, for example,
utilities can import electric-
ity — maybe solar power
from the Southwest or wind
power from Montana and
Wyoming. And if the tables
turn, Cascadia can export
solar, wind and water power.
A bigger grid isn’t the
sole solution. Giant bat-
tery arrays on the high-volt-
age grid or smaller packs
charged from rooftop solar
panels could keep things
running for several hours.
Hydrogen gas produced
from clean electricity and
stored locally could back up
the grid.
Even diehard advocates
for an expanded grid agree
local energy upgrades will
be crucial. Still, they say,
grid expansion requires
immediate action. Yet grid
projects often are delayed
for a decade or more by
community opposition to
new power lines and inter-
state disputes over who
should pay for new lines.
In most of the United
States and parts of Can-
ada, utilities give neutral
grid operators and regional
markets control over power
plants. Such optimized sys-
tems provide electricity
at lower costs, identifying
where new lines are needed
and spreading costs among
the utilities and states that
benefi t.
West of the Rockies, the
power sector remains dom-
inated by vertically inte-
grated monopolies. An
independent grid operator
manages most of Califor-
nia’s electricity, but every-
where else control rests with
37 public and private util-
ities, including 14 within
British Columbia, Washing-
ton and Oregon alone.
A coordinated Western
grid is needed to acceler-
ate wind and solar installa-
tions and to expand access
to imported renewable
energy, says Spencer Gray,
who runs the Portland-based
David T. Hanson
The Colstrip coal plant in Montana, which supplies electricity to customers in the Northwest and elsewhere.
Northwest & Intermoun-
tain Power Producers Coa-
lition. The group’s members
include most of the North-
west’s renewable energy
developers.
“It’s crazy to go into a
decarbonized future still
treating each state or each
utility as a little island unto
itself,” Gray said.
Although attempts to
shift the dynamic in the West
failed in recent decades,
the U.S. Senate recently
approved an infrastruc-
ture bill with provisions to
encourage centralized oper-
ations and to facilitate line
approval and fi nancing.
And Western utilities
have now gained experience
with open power markets
via an exchange launched in
2014 by Pacifi Corp and the
agency that operates Cali-
fornia’s grid. Although the
Western Energy Imbalance
Market trades only last-min-
ute surpluses — mostly
renewable energy that
would go to waste —as of
last month, it had saved con-
sumers a cool $1.4 billion.
To assess prospects for
a coordinated regional grid,
InvestigateWest sought the
views of an industry rep-
resentative, a renewable
energy advocate and a for-
mer British Columbia power
trader who now teaches
energy economics.
Managing energy
politics
Scott Bolton says he’s the
lone liberal arts major in a
utility’s transmission depart-
ment — usually the domain
of electrical engineers. But
it’s no accident. Modern-
izing the grid is more than
a technical challenge for
Pacifi Corp. “We have a six-
state system, and we have
three of the bluest of the
‘blue’ states and three of the
reddest of the ‘red’ states,”
Bolton said.
As negotiators work in
several forums to unify the
power sector, weather and
politics associated with cli-
mate change stoke tensions
across the West. Grid devel-
opment in states as polit-
ically diverse as Oregon,
Washington and Wyoming
requires a political science
major’s experience.
State politicians “think
local.” For example, pres-
sure to avoid a repeat of
2020’s rolling blackouts
prompted California’s grid
operator to adopt a Califor-
nia-fi rst policy that could
block urgent power fl ows
to other jurisdictions. This
engendered distrust in other
states and impeded Cal-
ifornia system’s eff ort to
spearhead a Western power
market.
Closer to home for Pacif-
iCorp, tensions between
pro-coal Montana and Wyo-
ming and anti-coal Oregon
and Washington threaten to
delay development of reli-
able wind energy.
Federal politicians are
working to accelerate grid
expansion. Gray worked
with U.S. Sen. Maria Can-
twell, a Washington Dem-
ocrat, on a proposal to help
transmission developers get
Bradley W. Parks/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Power lines are seen at Bonneville Dam.
private fi nancing. The plan
would empower the Depart-
ment of Energy to sign up
for rights to a proposed
or expanded line, thereby
encouraging utilities to join
in. And a $2.5 billion “trans-
mission facilitation fund”
is part of the Senate’s $550
billion infrastructure bill,
which still must pass the
House.
Meanwhile, Bolton said
a proposal by U.S. Sen. Ron
Wyden, an Oregon Demo-
crat, to extend tax breaks to
transmission projects could
have even greater impact.
That measure could pass as
part of a $3.5-billion, Dem-
ocrat-driven package.
But not everyone in Cas-
cadia welcomes Bolton’s
pitch. Communities and
conservationists are fi ghting
a link between Eastern Ore-
gon and Idaho, for example.
They accuse Idaho Power,
Pacifi Corp’s project partner,
of trying to siphon off Cas-
cadia’s renewable energy
and degrading views along
the Oregon Trail.
Critics in coal-rich states,
meanwhile, are riled by Ore-
gon and Washington man-
dates to phase out imports of
coal-generated power.
The way to transcend
these divisions, Bolton said,
is to deliver cheaper power
to everyone. He notes the
“happy coincidence” that
adding renewable energy
and cutting the use of fossil
fuels now also reduces costs.
On utilities and the
greater good
Nicole Hughes’ big-
gest challenge is disjointed
thinking by some utilities
and their states’ regulators.
Hughes runs Renew-
able Northwest, a coali-
tion pushing for renewable
energy deployment in Ore-
gon, Washington, Idaho and
Montana. To her, blackouts
that crippled Texas in Feb-
ruary dramatized the impor-
tance of sharing power
among regions.
Texas operates its own
grid and has only weak con-
nections to adjoining west-
ern, eastern and Mexican
grids. The result, she said,
was that Texas couldn’t tap
outside help when extreme
cold shut down dozens of
gas, coal, wind and nuclear
power plants in February.
Hundreds of people died
when heaters turned off .
Her fi rst focus for Cas-
cadia’s grid is repurpos-
ing and expanding exist-
ing high-voltage lines. One
example is the line linking
the Colstrip, Montana, coal
power plant to the plant’s
four co-owners: Pacifi Corp,
Portland General Electric,
Avista and Bellevue, Wash-
ington–based Puget Sound
Energy. Those utilities all
anticipate shutting down
their Colstrip units between
2027 and 2030.
Renewable
Northwest
eagerly awaits retirement
of the Colstrip plant so that
its line to Washington can
be repurposed for Mon-
tana wind power. But Puget
Sound Energy put that future
in doubt in early 2020 when
it requested permission from
Washington state regulators
to sell its shares in Colstrip
and the power line to North-
Western Energy, a Montana
utility with a weaker com-
mitment to climate action.
Puget Sound Energy
priced its transmission asset
at $1.725 million — a bar-
gain according to a transmis-
sion expert hired by Renew-
able Northwest and the
Seattle-based NW Energy
Coalition.
The
expert,
Michael Goggin, testifi ed to
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Commis-
sion that Puget Sound Ener-
gy’s asset was worth at least
$342 million to Washington
ratepayers. Ultimately, staff
advised the commission to
reject the sale.
Hughes,
meanwhile,
expects her struggle to con-
tinue: “We anticipate hav-
ing this fi ght over and over
again, every time a utility
gets out of Colstrip.”
Hughes says some new
transmission
lines
are
needed — and likely will
be included in the projects
planned by Pacifi Corp. Still,
she cautions against plan-
ning new lines until the West
has a regional market that
involves states and stake-
holders beyond just utilities.
She argues that such a mar-
ket is needed to unlock the
full potential of the existing
grid.
“Instead of just buying
something new, we need to
fi gure out if there’s some-
thing we can reuse. We’re
not very good at that in this
country,” Hughes said.
Sharing British
Columbia’s fl exibility
Blake Shaff er spent
seven years as an electric-
ity trader for provincial util-
ity BC Hydro. As an aca-
demic, he focuses on the
role that power trading can
play in decarbonizing econ-
omies. Power trading’s
moneymaking and climate
action opportunities increas-
ingly align, says the Univer-
sity of Calgary economics
professor.
He points to Cascadia’s
hydropower and argues it
has a lucrative role to play
in helping utilities across the
West slash reliance on coal-
and gas-fi red electricity.
Hydropower reservoirs
are essentially giant batter-
ies, and British Columbia
has the West’s biggest. The
W.A.C. Bennett Dam on the
Peace River impounds about
60 million acre-feet of water
— roughly six times more
than Grand Coulee Dam.
This gives the province
unusual fl exibility, Shaff er
said. Hydropower reservoirs
smooth out seasonal fl uc-
tuations in supply, making
British Columbia less vul-
nerable to low-water years
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that stress Washington and
California. In recent years,
British Columbia also has
earned extra revenue by tap-
ping its fl exible hydropower
to smooth out the Western
grid’s electricity supply.
Here’s how it works: BC
Hydro ramps up its turbines
and sends power south when
the Western grid’s power
supplies are tight — often
when wind and solar gener-
ation are in short supply. It
then uses imported power
to meet local demand when
electricity is abundant —
often when winds are strong
and sunny days are activat-
ing millions of solar panels.
“B.C. doesn’t have mas-
sive surplus of hydro-
power to export. In fact,
they’re often net importers.
But they do have fl exibil-
ity as to when they deploy
their hydropower,” Shaff er
said. And British Columbia
hydropower off ers its neigh-
bors an alternative to turning
on fossil-fueled generators,
which currently are their
leading source of fl exibility.
BC Hydro’s import/
export arm turns a tidy profi t
by trading electricity. Over
fi ve years, Powerex has
earned an average of $260
million more annually on
power sales than it paid for
imports.
Shaff er said BC Hydro
is boosting its capacity and
fl exibility. The utility is add-
ing turbines at existing hydro
dams and building a dam on
the Peace River, although
the structurally troubled
Site C hydropower project
remains controversial.
The West will need as
much fl exibility as it can
get. As greenhouse gas tar-
gets tighten, it will be harder
for utilities to use fos-
sil-fi red power plants. At the
same time, peak electricity
demand for home heating,
cars and other equipment is
expected to increase.
If the province wants
to use its expanded hydro-
power to add fl exibility to
the Western grid, it will need
more cross-border transmis-
sion capacity.
Shaff er
said
added
cross-border transmission
is likely to pay off for both
sides. He points to work
by Massachusetts Institute
of Technology researchers
who ran computer models
to explore the value of com-
parable exchanges between
Hydro-Québec’s big reser-
voirs and the northeastern
United States.
In the university’s sim-
ulation, Quebec and New
England traded increas-
ing volumes of energy back
and forth as researchers pro-
grammed in more transmis-
sion between the jurisdic-
tions. As trading increased,
carbon pollution and energy
costs fell, and electrifi cation
of home heating and vehi-
cles accelerated.
But conjuring this elec-
trical symbiosis may take
years. Proposed power lines
from Quebec south are fre-
quently hamstrung by oppo-
sition from local and state
interests.
“Transmission doesn’t
get discussed enough,” said
a clearly frustrated Shaf-
fer. “We’re all kicking and
screaming and saying this is
a big part of the solution if
we’re going to decarbonize.”