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Efficient Use of Energy We Have Can Fend Off New Power Plants Commentary by Sara Patton The Spokesman Review - January 8, 2001

Spokane -- In the midst of doom and gloom warnings of Western power shortages and skyrocketing electricity prices, the California Energy Commission (CEC) last month provided a glimmer of hope that our energy troubles may improve as soon as next summer. In a new study, the CEC predicts California's summer demand for power will actually be lower next year than it was this year thanks to new state and utility investments in energy conservation.

The report is important to the Northwest because the fate of our electricity system is increasingly connected to California's and because it reveals the crucial role energy efficiency can play in fending off the threat of blackouts.

In a Nov. 30 editorial, "More generating plants a necessity," the Spokesman-Review identifies a key challenge we face -- the Northwest needs more electricity but most people don't want a power plant in their neighborhood. Becoming more energy efficient is a crucial step in taking on that challenge. By investing now in energy conservation we can reduce our future demand for electricity and temper the rush to build the growing number of proposed new natural gas-fired power plants.

Making our homes, businesses and industries more energy efficient will also produce benefits no power plant can match. For example, weatherized homes heat up faster, stay warm longer and lower our utility bills. Energy smart businesses and factories gain an edge over their less-efficient competitors. Emergency requests to turn off Christmas lights are sometimes necessary, but real energy conservation is about doing more with less, not doing without.

Before dramatic region-wide cuts in conservation efforts began in the mid-1990s, the Northwest enjoyed a proud record of achievement in getting the most out of its energy system. Since 1980, the region has saved about 1,600 average megawatts of electricity, enough to power the cities of Spokane and Seattle combined. Without those gains in efficiency, the region would require additional generation resources equal to several medium-sized power plants of the type now proposed all over the region.

According to the Northwest Power Planning Council's conservative estimate, about 2,400 average megawatts of cost-effective energy conservation -- efficiency measures which cost no more than building new generation -- are there for the taking in our four-state region. But many of those potential savings will remain untapped without public policies that prompt utilities to invest in long-term conservation.

Spokane-based Avista Utilities is a pioneer in designing and implementing those much needed policies. In 1995, Avista became the first utility in the country to enact a public benefits charge for conservation. This simple, common sense approach requires the utility to invest a minimum percentage of its revenues in cost-effective energy efficiency.

Oregon, Montana and California are three of the dozen or so states who have applied a similar policy to every utility within their borders and extended the requirement to include investments in new, renewable resources and low-income energy services. Requiring all utilities to invest equally makes the policy competitively neutral. In other words no utility has to fear a competitor undercutting its rates in the short-term because that competitor didn't invest up front in clean and affordable energy for the long-term.

A blue ribbon panel convened by the governors of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana recommended in 1996 that each state require its utilities to invest a minimum of three percent of their retail electricity revenues annually in conservation, new non-hydro renewable resources and low-income weatherization. The Washington Legislature should set out to meet that standard as a cornerstone of its public policy response to the state's growing need for electricity.

The immediate threat of blackouts this winter can only be prevented by curbing our overall energy consumption. In meeting our long-term power needs, however, we must set out to capture all the cost-effective clean energy available to us. Anything less would be an economic blunder and an environmental tragedy.