Council staff will analyze potential for emerging technologies in energy efficiency for Ninth Plan

Over the 20-year timespan of the Power Plan, technological advancements are certain to occur. It’s also certain that it will be challenging to predict precisely when and under what circumstances those advancements will happen. At the August meeting in Portland, Power Division staff outlined methods for evaluating the potential for advancements in energy efficiency to include in the energy efficiency supply curves for the Ninth Plan. The Ninth Power Plan will cover the period from 2026-2046, and ensure that the Pacific Northwest’s power system continues to be adequate, efficient, economical, and reliable over those 20 years.

This would account for emerging efficiency technologies in the residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, and electricity sectors (read presentation | watch video). Manager of Power Planning Resources Kevin Smit said this includes Passive House building standards, deep retrofits for commercial buildings, heat pump dryers in the commercial sector, electric vehicle efficiency, industrial motors, and improvements in power grid distribution systems that reduce losses of electricity. This is the first time a power plan will consider emerging technologies in energy efficiency.

On the generating resources side, earlier this year Power Division staff developed three proxy reference plants to represent a range of emerging technologies. These proxies include a clean baseload resource, a clean peaker/medium duration storage resource, and a long-duration storage resource. This approach helps the Council evaluate and understand regional needs without being overly prescriptive of emerging technologies whose costs and timelines to commercial viability are uncertain. Staff have developed a comprehensive suite of reference plants for generating resources, including established technologies like land-based wind, solar, or natural gas.

All of these reference plants, along with demand side resources like energy efficiency or demand response, become options for the Power Division’s computer models to consider when exploring how best to meet future energy demand. The Council will use this analysis in developing the Ninth Plan’s cost-effective resource strategy.

Staff will use a similar proxy approach for emerging technologies in energy efficiency. For both supply and demand side sources, the costs of these emerging options are uncertain. Therefore, the Council plans to include a sensitivity that will explore the implications of technology costs being higher or lower. Most of the emerging efficiency technologies are estimated to be available at costs above $200/MWh. Distribution system technologies account for the bulk of those that are estimated to be available at less than $200/MWh.

Taken as part of the Ninth Plan’s entire energy efficiency supply curve, adding emerging technologies increases the potential by approximately 2,000 aMW over the next 20 years, from roughly 5,000 aMW to 7,000 aMW. The Council will evaluate this potential and determine which portion is cost-effective and should be included in the Ninth Plan’s resource strategy.

Taken cumulatively, Senior Resources Analyst Christian Douglass noted that these emerging efficiency measures would likely have the largest impact in the last 10 years of the Ninth Plan.