A January cold snap that strained the Pacific Northwest electricity grid also serves as a cautionary tale for its future. With temperatures in the teens, power utilities across Washington struggled to cover spiking demand to keep the lights on. Puget Sound Energy, the state’s largest utility, even asked its customers to turn down thermostats and limit hot water use to conserve power.
Utilities relied on the state’s on-demand sources of generation, including hydroelectric dams, natural gas- and coal-powered plants, which can be turned up or on, depending upon need. Declaring what’s known as a “reliability emergency,” utilities also had to import thousands of megawatts of electricity from the wider western U.S. and Canadian power grids to stave off the threat of blackouts, according to a recent analysis by a wholesale electricity provider.
Wind and solar farms, meanwhile, helped little as a largely breezeless low-pressure system moved across the state. ….
When utilities lack the supply to meet ratepayers’ demands, blackouts are the result. They most often occur when that demand peaks: a summer heat wave, like California suffered in August 2020, or a winter storm, such as the one that befell Texas in February 2021. In January’s blast of arctic air, Bonneville Power Administration — the Northwest’s largest provider of power to Washington — hit its largest output of electricity since 1990. ….
Through this monumental transformation to clean energy, Northwest leaders and power planners must ensure the grid remains reliable as greenhouse gas-emitting sources are powered down and renewables are added. … ….
Without another long-term, on-demand generation solution, the Northwest grid could fall into a vicious circle: Extreme weather exacerbated by climate change drives high demand that local utilities must meet by purchasing or turning on their own carbon-emitting sources like natural gas. ….
Concurrently, demand on the power grid is surging — be it the upswing in electric car purchases, heat pumps or the growth of AI-powering data centers. The Northwest needs roughly 4,000 megawatts of additional generation, about 20% of the current output, to keep pace over the next five years, according to a 2023 forecast by the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee.
Meanwhile, Washington has mandated the reduction of all carbon sources to meet its climate goals. ….
“We’re shutting down plants right now in anticipation of new carbon-free generation technologies that haven’t yet come to fruition,” said Kurt Miller, director of the Northwest Public Power Association. “If we’re wrong about this, it puts people at risk, either through higher energy costs, or even the prospect of blackouts.” …
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