Whatcom County executive joins some statewide leaders in criticizing PSE’s clean energy plans
Plans by Puget Sound Energy to wean more than a million electric customers off planet-warming fossil fuels are not adequate, Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu wrote in a Feb. 24 letter to Washington’s Utilities and Transportation Commission.
“This (Clean Energy Implementation Plan) does not address the urgency of the climate crisis and needs to move more rapidly to reduce demand and convert to clean energy,” Sidhu wrote in the letter, which the Whatcom Climate Impact Advisory Committee helped draft.
Puget Sound Energy, the state’s largest energy utility, is required to craft a Clean Energy Implementation Plan under the Clean Energy Transformation Act, a 2019 law mandating electric utilities to supply Washington customers with 100% clean electricity by 2045. That means no electricity can be generated by burning coal or natural gas. Electricity accounts for about 16% of Washington’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Department of Ecology’s 2018 inventory.
In a public comment on the draft plan, Sidhu and the climate advisory committee criticized the privately-owned utility for failing to incorporate climate change data into its energy use projections, moving too slowly on renewable energy deployment and proposing years of studies for methods many utilities across the country already incorporate. Similar concerns were echoed in letters sent to the state commission by the King County executive, council members and mayors.
The Clean Energy Implementation Plan will guide PSE’s clean energy investments for the next four years, through 2025. Customers should have a vested interest in these plans — they will pay for them, with the company recently proposing significant rate increases to help fund the transition to clean energy, said Don Marsh, lead for the Washington Clean Energy Coalition.
“’Transformation’ is a very important word in Clean Energy Transformation Act,” Marsh said. “We are looking at a very large reset in how PSE generates our electricity.”
Executive Sidhu’s letter was submitted a week before PSE’s announcement on Thursday, March 3, that it would launch an environmental advisory committee. Bellingham Mayor Seth Fleetwood and state Rep. Debra Lekanoff will sit on the committee.
While PSE may sound enthusiastic about getting communities off fossil fuels, the utility’s commitment will be proven by its actions, said Ellyn Murphy, chair of Whatcom’s Climate Impact Advisory Committee.
“I am encouraged by what PSE says they are trying to do with the Clean Energy Transformation Act,” she said. “But at the end of the day, it’s what they actually do that counts.”
Planning for changing energy use
Climate change will dramatically alter how much energy we use and where we get it from, Executive Sidhu’s letter warns, referencing the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, an organization that works to balance regional energy and environment needs.
If the region’s average temperature increases as predicted, communities would need less electricity in the winter to heat buildings and more in the summer to power air conditioners and irrigation systems, the Council said in its most recent Power Plan, which provides guidance on maintaining a reliable power system over 20 years.
At the same time, decreasing snowpack in the spring and lower river flows during the summer could tighten the supply of hydroelectric power, one of the region’s most abundant clean energy sources.
Consumer advocates have been asking PSE for years to incorporate climate change projections into its plans, Sidhu’s letter said and Marsh confirmed. The Vashon Climate Action Group expressed similar frustrations in a letter to the state Utilities and Transportation Commission.
“For years PSE has insisted on using backward-looking data for weather, even though the evidence for climate change has been apparent,” the group wrote.
The utility recently decided it would incorporate climate change data into plans starting in 2023. PSE’s previous plans have predicted energy use based on 30 years of historical data. The company will now use 15 years of historical data and 15 years of climate model data, but Marsh is frustrated that the change comes so late.
“That’s actually a tragic story,” he said. “They dropped the Clean Energy Implementation Plan, and then a couple weeks later are saying ‘Oh, we are looking at these new weather projections.’”
In an email to The Bellingham Herald, PSE public relations manager Melanie Coon said the utility didn’t include climate change projections in its four-year clean energy plan because the Northwest Power and Conservation Council released models in fall 2021, when the planning process was too far along to change course. The utility said it will incorporate climate change in the 2023 update to its Clean Energy Implementation Plan.
More clean energy, fast
Executive Sidhu and some clean energy advocates are also concerned that PSE may build a new fuel-burning plant in the coming years, using money that could be spent on renewable energy and battery storage. By 2026, the utility plans on generating more than 60% of its electricity using clean energy sources, up from 34% in 2020, Coon said.
The utility anticipates it will need more capacity to generate energy by 2026, but there are no “concrete plans” for a new fuel-burning plant, Coon said. In a 2021 planning document, PSE found that the most cost-effective way of maintaining system reliability would be a combustion turbine run on biodiesel. Unlike traditional diesel, which is refined from crude oil, biodiesel is a renewable fuel manufactured from vegetable oils, animal fats or recycled restaurant grease.
The utility predicts there would be enough biodiesel manufactured in Washington to run a facility, but some local leaders are skeptical and want PSE to conduct more analysis.
“Without consistent supplies of biodiesel, the capacity will likely be met with natural gas — in direct opposition to the goals of the Clean Energy Transformation Act and King County’s shared emission reduction targets,” King County leaders wrote in their letter to the state Utilities and Transportation Commission.
Sidhu and the Whatcom climate advisory committee want to see the utility instead ramp up development of community solar, or large solar arrays that individuals can purchase or lease a share of. PSE is currently planning around 400 kilowatts of community solar in Bellingham, Sidhu wrote in the letter, but Whatcom County needs several times more added to the grid annually for the next four years to meet statewide emissions and equity goals.
PSE also needs to pick up the pace implementing programs that incentivize customers to use less electricity at peak demand times, Sidhu and Murphy with the Climate Impact Advisory Committee said. When there is very high demand for energy, utilities often need to rely on polluting sources such as natural gas rather than renewable resources, according to PSE’s clean energy plan.
Utilities nationwide use methods to control high energy demand, and Murphy is frustrated that PSE plans on conducting multi-year pilot programs before making certain incentives publicly available. The utility argued in its Clean Energy Implementation Plan draft that it needs thorough studies to protect customers and iron out pricing details.
“It just comes across as they are being very slow to implement these things,” Murphy said.
The sentiment that PSE should be bolder is what underscores much of the criticism brought forward by some local leaders and clean energy advocates.
“The area PSE serves is one of most innovative, educated, environmentally-aware places on the planet,” Marsh said. “If we can’t lead here, the folks living in states without the advantages we have will have a real tough time.”
This story was originally published March 5, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
