![]() ![]() ![]() Sarah Wright, executive director of Utah Clean Energy, called the utility’s 2019 plan a “big step in the right direction” but stressed that more needs to be done. Some coal plants will stay online for decades, including Utah’s Hunter Plant. The utility could add between 813 and 2,458 megawatts of new natural gas “peaking resources” that are deployed during high-demand periods. While retiring coal plants - which PacifiCorp estimates will save its customers $599 million - represents a decarbonization of the company’s energy portfolio, it doesn’t plan to eliminate fossil fuels entirely. We put resource generation in places it makes sense.” “The wind blows in Wyoming and the sun shines in Utah. Other resources are more economically available,” PacifiCorp spokesperson Spencer Hall said. The implication is clear: clean energy, in an increasing number of scenarios, is the most viable and affordable option for utilities. By 2021, large utilities in every Western state except Colorado will be part of the grid market. Sharing surplus renewable energy with other utilities has saved PacifiCorp ratepayers $200 million and removed 15 million tons’ worth of emissions since 2014, according to company information. Those renewables will be available to other companies around the West.” ![]() “They’re adding a huge amount of renewables, particularly solar. “The California Independent System Operator, or CAISO, has been instrumental in developing the energy imbalance market,” Schlissel said. Come 2022, 19 Western utilities will be part of the market.Īs with many clean-energy breakthroughs, the shared grid has its roots in California. Since 2014, PacifiCorp - which serves customers in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and California - has partnered with other utilities to create the Western Energy Imbalance Market, a transmission network that allows, for instance, coastal cities to access Wyoming wind power in the late afternoon as demand rises. “I think that was kind of a world-shaking experience for utilities,” Schlissel said.Īnother factor fueling the clean energy shift is the ability for utilities to connect with that power when it’s needed. Wind generation already cost less than coal at the time, but the Xcel bids showed solar with battery storage also outcompeted about 75 percent of operating coal generation in Colorado. “We were surprised, Xcel was surprised, analysts around the country were amazed and astounded at … how low the bid prices were,” Gwen Farnsworth, a senior policy energy advisor for Western Resource Advocates, told The Colorado Independent in 2018. Xcel received a deluge of bids - more than 430 - at bottom-barrel prices. PacifiCorp’s transition was presaged in late 2017, when Colorado utility Xcel Energy asked for renewable energy proposals to replace its aging coal plants. Draft documents and public presentations make clear that the power provider expects a major shift away from coal much sooner than the company signaled just a few years ago. The Oregon-based utility planned to submit its 20-year blueprint for how it expects to provide reliable electricity at the lowest cost to regulators in the six Western states where it operates. PacifiCorp, the largest grid operator in the West, embodies that accelerating transition. A massive power sharing network, private companies willing to build clean-energy projects at cutthroat rates, and improved battery storage are quickening the pace of wind and solar adoption in the West. ![]() What is surprising, however, is how fast renewable energy adoption is happening on a regional scale. Digging finite resources out of the ground is expensive, especially when one factors in environmental cleanup costs, and we’re becoming awfully good at harnessing abundant and free fuel courtesy of sun and wind. That cleaner energy sources are pushing coal out of the market is no longer news. This story originally appeared in Bitterroot, an online publication about the politics, economy, culture, and environment of the West. ![]()
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