Conca also opined in mid-2023 that Washington state has trouble on the horizon—trouble with its electrical grid. Trouble as in not being reliable. Trouble as in big risks of rolling blackouts. The trouble stems from attempts to decarbonize our society. Getting rid of coal, oil, and gas in generating electricity is the low-hanging fruit, but just getting rid of them without a realistic plan to replace them will do more harm than good.
Seeing this trouble in Washington state is scary. Aside from usually having the lowest cost of electricity in the country, the Pacific Northwest has never had a big problem with reliability. Washington is one of the most decarbonized states in the union, with utilities getting about 55 percent of their electricity from hydro-electric dams, about 4 percent from nuclear, 5 percent from wind with some solar and bio (another 1 percent), 13 percent from gas, 10 percent from coal (from a single in-state coal plant as well as imports from neighboring states), and 11.3 percent from “unspecified power."
Compare Washington’s 2020 emissions of around 90 million metric tons CO2 equivalent to the U.S. 2020 total emissions of 6,000 million metric tons CO2 equivalent. The state is part of the Western Inter-coal-to-natural gas-to-nuclear transition as a way to preserve affordability and reliability on our way to carbon free. I think Dunn was just being nice using the word “potentially.”
Dunn has warned that over the next decade, Washington will be facing a large gap between electricity demand on the coldest and hottest days and the availability of dependable electrical generation. After nearly two decades of relatively fast growth, both annual and peak electricity loads are forecasted to increase in the region by 5–6 percent, even after accounting for increased energy efficiency.
A similar warning came from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NWPCC). The 2019 study, "Resource Adequacy in the Pacific Northwest: Serving Load Reliably under a Changing Resource Mix," to which NWPCC provided data and technical review, showed that the situation could bring an end to a period of stability dating back to the end of the Enron-precipitated energy crisis of 2000.
Conca concluded that the industry considers the state’s decades-long outage risk of less than 5 percent to be safe, but the study warns that Washington is now facing a 26 percent probability of an outage due to insufficient generation to meet an increased load. !at increased load-to-generation ratio is the result of the loss of remaining coal plants, an increase in electric vehicle use, and a steady increase in population. Powerful political forces have forced the NWPCC to tone down their forecast lest it sound alarmist. But those of us in the business are alarmed!
[Read full Editorial. It is outstanding in coverage and clarity.]
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