Managers Message

Charles L. Dawsey
General Manager/Executive Vice President for Benton REA.

FUTURE ENERGY CRISIS

Dear Members:

A significant amount of renewable generation (wind generation in particular) is being developed in Washington State and across America.  For the most part, wind generation is being driven by legislative mandates, huge taxpayer subsidies, production tax credits, and huge tax reductions for developers.  Unfortunately, the output of the projects constructed in Washington is often sold “out of state”, without any benefit to electric ratepayers in Washington.

Many electric utilities in our state are now required to purchase power from commercial renewable resources regardless of the cost, or to purchase “green attributes” to meet legislative mandates for renewable energy.  Unfortunately, the “green attributes” from the renewable projects are also being sold “out of state” by project developers, to the highest bidder, providing no benefit to electric utilities or consumers in Washington.

Today electric consumers demand service 100 percent of the time.  Commercial wind generation typically functions only 28 percent of the time.  To make wind generation work, the output of conventional generating resources (hydroelectric, coal, natural gas) must be called upon 72 percent of the time. In the Northwest, generation from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) has been dedicated to augment the commercial wind projects.  Using the output from the BPA system to support wind generation reduces energy that would otherwise be available to serve end use consumers, or otherwise sold to reduce the overall cost of power.  In addition, committing output from the BPA system to support wind generation has reduced BPA’s flexibility to meet seasonal fluctuations in load resulting in higher costs to the end use consumer.

Commercial wind generation, generally located in remote areas, has required the construction of millions of dollars of new transmission line.  Unfortunately, construction of these lines has been given priority over construction of transmission lines necessary to provide adequate service to end use consumers.

Development of commercial wind generation will likely continue. However, without the construction of new conventional generation, the growing demand of end use consumers cannot be met.  The development of future wind generation is problematic because all available output of the BPA system has been used to support existing wind projects.  Failure to construct transmission lines to serve end use consumers before constructing transmission to connect wind generation projects will result in transmission outages and increased costs to end consumers.  Failure to address these issues now will result in a FUTURE ENERGY CRISIS.  Let’s work together to bring a balance to these issues, after all “That is The Cooperative Way.”

Sincerely Yours