Council Meeting via Webinar

November 18, 2014
Add this meeting to your calendar

9:30-11am

GoToMeeting or conference call 800-786-1922, code 53922423 

The webinar will be run by the Power Committee and conducted by Power Division staff for the purposes of providing information and education. Council Members other than those on the Power Committee may also take part and ask questions during the webinar. No Council decisions will be made during the webinar.

Limited space is available for those who would prefer to attend at the Council offices. Please contact Chad Madron to RSVP if you wish to attend in person.

TOPICS

  1. Assessment of Utility Scale Solar PV Resources and of Combined Cycle Combustion Turbine , Steve Simmons, Gillian Charles
  2. Update on Electric Vehicle and Data Center loads – for use in the 7th Plan, Massoud Jourabchi

BACKGROUND

Topic 1:

Council staff will be presenting on the assessments of two generating resource technologies – utility scale solar photovoltaic (Solar PV) and combined cycle combustion gas turbines (CCCT).

The assessments include proposed reference plants for each of the technologies to be used for the Draft Seventh Plan. The work represents the culmination of staff analysis coupled with guidance from the Generating Resource Advisory Committee (GRAC) over the past year. Staff will share results of estimates for key plant parameters including:

  • overnight capital cost – $/kW
  • operations and maintenance cost – $/kW-year
  • fixed levelized costs and full levelized cost of energy – $/MWh

Though there has been little historic activity in utility scale solar pv in the Northwest, recently interest has been picking up. Capital costs for solar pv systems have been steadily dropping since the previous Council’s Sixth Plan assessment, and costs are anticipated to continue to decline over much of the planning horizon of the Seventh Plan.

With low natural gas prices and solid existing infrastructure, the Northwest has seen continued CCCT development. Langley Gulch CCCT came on-line in 2012 for Idaho Power, and the Carty Generation Station is expected to be on-line in 2016 for Portland General. Since the Sixth Plan assessment, CCCT units have improved slightly in both performance and price.

Topic 2:

Council staff will present their update to the forecast of load in the embedded, collocation and enterprise data centers in the Northwest. The revised information will show the expected market driven changes in the demand for and supply of service from data centers. Using the data from recent Commercial Building Stock Assessment  a new picture of data center loads as emerged. The revised range of forecast for the collocation and enterprise data centers will be used development of loads for use in 7th plan.

Council staff will also present their update on Plug-in Electric Vehicles. The revised forecast shows load impact due to better performance in the vehicles, smaller number of vehicles expected on the road and assumed further improvement in performance of vehicles.