Category – Energy

The Council’s Power Committee met Friday, Oct. 23, and discussed a new timeline for the Ninth Power Plan that includes releasing a second draft, potentially in December.

At October’s meeting in Donnelly, Idaho, the Council heard presentations about the state of the economy in the Pacific Northwest and nationally, as well as how utilities and electric co-operatives are planning resource development to meet growing demands for electricity in their service territories.

The pace of the Pacific Northwest’s acquisition of energy efficiency is accelerating compared with recent years. At its September meeting, the Council reviewed the 2025 Regional Conservation Progress report, which found that the region acquired 182 average megawatts in cost-effective efficiency last year – a 14% increase from the year prior.

Demand response is an important and growing resource on the Northwest’s electricity grid. At August’s Council meeting, leaders from Seattle City Light, Puget Sound Energy, and Opower presented on their strategies to bolster demand response in the Pacific Northwest in upcoming years.

Council votes to release draft Ninth Power Plan for public comment; hearings to be held in September & October in Oregon, Idaho, Washington & Montana

The Council is getting closer to a possible decision on whether to approve releasing a draft of the Ninth Power Plan to the public. If approved, it would commence a public comment period and hearing process in the four-state region. The public would be invited to attend hearings held in cities and towns across the Pacific Northwest and provide their input and thoughts on the proposed plan. The goal is to adopt the final Ninth Plan by the end of the year.

Over the course of two meetings in May, Council members and Power Division staff continued discussions on options for the Ninth Power Plan’s cost-effective resource strategy. The Council could potentially approve a draft of the Ninth Plan at its July 14-15 meeting in Portland, which would commence a public comment period and hearing process. The goal is to approve the final plan by the end of the year.

As the Council continues to make progress toward developing the resource strategy for the Ninth Power Plan this year, Power Division staff has reached a significant milestone. They have completed regional resource optimization modeling. They presented results of this study at the Council’s April meeting in Whitefish, MT.

A recent study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Brattle Group, a consulting firm, finds that while retail electricity prices in the U.S. have increased in the past several years, these trends have tracked with inflation, on average. A Brattle Group analyst presented the results of this study to the Council at its March meeting in Portland.

At March’s Council meeting in Portland, representatives from the Western Transmission Expansion Coalition presented key findings from their new 10-year study examining an expansion of the transmission system in the Western Interconnection, including the Pacific Northwest.