rp_0201_10a.html
Council Adopts Conservation Strategy
The Northwest Power Planning Council
last month adopted its proposed region wide goal for achieving 100 average megawatts (aMWs) of energy efficiency savings in each of the next three years. Conservation advocates were encouraged by the Council’s proposal, but argue the target is still too low. The 100 aMW target doesn’t incorporate more expensive conservation measures that would be cost-effective during periods of very high prices, and fails to recognize new opportunities made possible by improved technology.
The Council is working on a new, comprehensive power plan for the Northwest but wanted to establish the interim goal based on data already in hand. The Council acknowledged the agency’s previous targets were conservative and noted the region failed to achieve even those low targets in recent years. Analysis by Council staff showed that since 1996, the region has achieved just half of the agency’s relatively conservative target of about 90 aMWs of conservation per year. Recent reports show the region achieved approximately 85 aMWs in 2001, a year of unprecedented price spikes and volatility in the electricity industry.
The Council echoed sentiments of BPA Administrator Steve Wright
, that the region must get off the conservation “roller coaster.” During periods of low prices, the region has cut back on conservation efforts and allowed its energy efficiency delivery infrastructure to wither. When prices rose the Northwest
was unable to ramp up fast enough to achieve potential cost-effective conservation savings. “To track recent swings in wholesale electricity prices, utility and contractor (conservation) programs and staff would need to expand and contract at impossible rates,” according to a memo from Council staff. Analysts estimate the region missed out on hundreds of millions of savings over the last 18 months. Sustaining conservation investments is the only way to ensure the infrastructure will be in place when prices spike in the future.
— Steven Weiss