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DOE Launches LSRD Replacement Study Amid Forecasts for Surging Power Needs by K.C. Mehaffey NW Fishletter, October 7, 2024

Energy could be replaced with interregional power purchases
stored in batteries alongside energy efficiency improvements.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will begin an analysis of the regional energy infrastructure needed to meet future demand in the Pacific Northwest given high load-growth forecasts and expectations to meet clean-energy demands.

The Pacific Northwest Regional Energy Planning Project -- or PREPP -- will include at least one alternative for future power needs that does not include the four lower Snake River dams, prompting harsh words from public-power advocates -- along with some hope that it will rely on PNNL's technical work and not hinge on political goals.

A group that wants the dams removed said it's high time for the region to consider the needs of fish and the promises made to Native American tribes as it plans for its future power needs. Meanwhile, an association representing the interests of irrigators pointed out that the study was expected and the analysis will include alternatives that do not include breaching the four dams.

The study is one of numerous commitments the U.S. government made in December 2023 that led to a five- to 10-year stay in litigation over Columbia River System Operations.

"The 18-month study will explore how utilities in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington can plan infrastructure growth investments to address complex dynamics facing the region such as high load growth, electrification, planning for extreme weather events, and meeting decarbonization targets," DOE's news release states.

It is being funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Grid Deployment Office and the Washington State Department of Commerce and will look at "investments that will be required to meet the goals and requirements of regional participants, including resource adequacy, decarbonization, ecosystem priorities, and system reliance and reliability."

"It will examine at least one scenario looking at what infrastructure and resources could be needed to replace the power and services provided by the four Lower Snake River Dams should Congress authorize removal, consistent with DOE's commitments per the December 14, 2023, Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. Government, the four Treaty Tribes of the Lower Columbia River, and the States of Oregon and Washington," the agency said.

In a prepared statement, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association expressed displeasure with the announcement.

"This is yet another step down the dangerous path towards dam breaching, which would jeopardize reliable electricity for millions of Americans in the Pacific Northwest," NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said. "Not only does this expose a severe lack of understanding about the importance of keeping the lights on, it also reveals a misplaced desire to undermine our nation's essential portfolio of carbon-free hydroelectric resources without considering the cost," he said.

The Public Power Council, however, expressed hope that the study will reveal how much power from the four lower Snake River dams is needed -- now and in the future.

"The DOE announcement of the PREPP acknowledges an extensive and growing list of challenges and concerns that are confronting all electric utilities in the Northwest -- indeed across the country -- but it also still continues to advance a focus on the breaching of critical Northwest hydropower projects that is growing more and more unrealistic with each passing day," Scott Simms, CEO and executive director of PPC, said in a news release emailed to NW Fishletter.

"We hope to harness the knowledge of the experts who keep the power flowing 24/7 to Northwest communities to share hard data and analysis with the PREPP leaders about why breaching the four Lower Snake River dams would be a huge step backward for the reliable and carbon free power supply serving much of our region," he added. "Removing proven, reliable clean energy sources and then scrambling to find more clean energy to fill that void during a time of immense scarcity is not practical or logical."

Simms pointed to the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee's 2024 regional forecast, which shows a 30-percent increase in electricity demand among Northwest utilities for the next 10 years. He also cited the findings of the Bonneville Power Administration's latest White Book, which indicate that regional energy deficits will begin in 2027 with negative 370 MW and climb to negative 2,738 MW by 2034.

"Northwest utilities are sharing how they are barely getting by without power blackouts in times of extreme weather and when unexpected grid and supply issues occur -- and that's with the electricity sources we have today and with consumer consumption only continuing to soar," Simms said.

He said he remains hopeful that the study will be a robust technical analysis of energy needs that does not consider political desires.

"PPC implores PREPP to make use of reliable data and resources already produced in recent years and focus on solving our resource adequacy issues, instead of searching for ways to make it worse," the news release says.

In an email to NW Fishletter, Zabyn Towner, executive director of Northwest Requirements Utilities, conveyed both hesitancy about a future without the Snake River dams, but also some optimism that the PNNL study will produce a balanced, useful result.

"To that end, NRU is in communication with the PREPP team and is actively encouraging both member staff and other public power utility staff to participate. This is necessary to ensure that the effort includes the perspectives and expertise necessary to address the many energy system challenges facing the Northwest today," Towner said.

He added caution with respect to the study's plan to include a future without the lower Snake River dams. "Given this focus, it is difficult to view PREPP as anything other than yet another step in the ongoing, coordinated effort to justify the removal of an enormous component of the clean hydropower generation that our members, and the Northwest as a whole, has historically relied upon," he said.

Joseph Bogaard, executive director of Save Our Wild Salmon, said advocates for salmon, orca and rivers are excited about the study, seeing it as an opportunity for the region to look ahead at how energy investments in the future can incorporate other regional priorities -- like salmon recovery.

"This new process and planning and approach is really an opportunity for the region to develop a road map that prioritizes multiple goals -- including reliability and affordable energy systems -- [and] that also protects and restores salmon populations and importantly upholds our nation's promises to Northwest tribes in treaties we signed with them over 100 years ago," Bogaard told NW Fishletter.

He said everyone knows that change is coming to the energy sector, and he's hoping they'll see this as an opportunity to work together to steer that change in a way that meets needs and solves problems in the current system.

"It's exactly the right approach, and frankly it continues to flummox me -- and I think other salmon advocates -- when all the energy experts agree we've got 10 times more generation to invest in and plan for than the lower Snake River dams produce. It's completely achievable and doable, and this obsession with protecting these four projects regardless of the costs is hard to understand," he said.

Bogaard added that salmon and clean-energy advocates look forward to being part of the conversation and see it as a huge opportunity to generate a win-win outcome for the region.

Darryll Olsen, board representative for the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association, said he was anticipating DOE's announcement. "There were no surprises here," he told NW Fishletter.

The U.S. government commitments say that DOE will fund a study conducted by the PNNL and potentially other DOE labs to complete a regional energy-needs planning process to "identify the best ways to meet the region's resource adequacy needs and decarbonization goals, and support meeting Washington and Oregon's power sector statutory requirements as well as state and [tribal] energy strategies, while also accounting for any long-term actions necessary to ensure abundant healthy salmon populations throughout the Basin, including breach of the Lower Snake River Dams." The tribes involved include the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, and the Nez Perce Tribe.

Olsen said DOE's announcement hardly mentioned the lower Snake River dams. Removing them is one of the options -- as required by the U.S. government commitments -- but he believes it will offer other alternatives.

To CSRIA, it's become obvious that something is going to change on the lower Snake River, Olsen said -- so he continues to advocate for CSRIA's proposed alternative, which would involve deep drawdowns at the two uppermost Snake River dams, but allow irrigation, barge transportation and hydroelectric generation to continue at Ice Harbor and Lower Monumental dams.

Olsen said he believes replacing the energy of just two dams could likely be done with interregional power purchases, conservation and combined-cycle gas turbines.

He said to his understanding -- after talking to multiple people involved with it -- PREPP will be conducted under the recently established Columbia Basin Task Force, and once it's completed, it will be given to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

The DOE announcement says PREPP will not replace or duplicate current planning processes, integrated resource plans or resource acquisition plans, but will help quantify and evaluate the impacts of infrastructure options available to the region. The process will rely on a steering committee representing regional, community, tribal utility and state perspectives, and a technical committee that will include experts on planning and resource acquisition to guide technical decisions in the study.

Related Sites:
Biden-Harris Administration Releases Report Highlighting Historic and Ongoing Negative Impacts of Federal Columbia River Dams on Tribal Communities Department of Interior, 6/18/24
United States Government's Analysis of the Impacts of Federal Dams on Columbia Basin Tribes Restores the Rule of Law and Supports Immediate Action to Prevent Salmon Extinction Nez Perce Tribe, 6/18/24
Northwest RiverPartners on establishment of Columbia River Task Force, report from Interior Department Northwest RiverPartners, 6/18/24