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Controlling Forces in Our Future Power by Editors Seattle Times - January 26, 2001

SOARING electricity bills can turn the most placid Northwest ratepayer into a conspiracy buff, but the region cannot afford to indulge in those distractions.

Certainly, California's energy crisis gives off whiffs of political incompetence, cowardice and corporate subterfuge. More is at play than low water levels behind hydroelectric dams, but suspicions must yield to the reality of razor-thin power margins.

Gov. Gary Locke and the Legislature have a package of policy proposals that can make a difference over time, but the immediate steps begin very close to home and on the job.

Conservation is back in fashion after being in and out of style with cycles of cheaper energy costs. For much of the Northwest, those savings in the late 1970s and early 1980s were driven by a nasty recession. Power was plentiful because it went begging.

When prices rebounded, and saving energy was embraced as cheaper than building new generating capacity, the Bonneville Power Administration and utilities responded with aggressive conservation plans. They faded, too, when changes in federal law and plentiful natural gas markets pushed electricity prices down again.

Now, an expensive cycle has returned, for reasons that combine California's ill-considered deregulation scheme, a bone-dry Northwest winter and hints of manipulated energy supplies.

The immediate solution here at home? Turn off the lights, turn down the thermostat and shut off the computer and any number of other power-nibbling appliances when they are not in use. Leadership and good citizenship in the commercial sector is needed too.

Northwest energy consumers will feel the bite of higher rates, and that is a good thing - to a point.

California retail ratepayers were insulated from increases in the original deregulation legislation by fearful politicians. At the height of the crisis, there has been no sharp incentive to change habits.

Washington's immediate power crisis is very much in the hands of consumers. Reducing consumption is the first, best response to spikes in the cost of electricity.

Long term, the picture is brighter. A number of gas-fired turbine plants are coming on line around the state. The trick is avoiding another trap in the future, when the turbines that bail us out cause the next crisis with sky-high natural gas prices.

Locke's correct instinct is to diversify the power generation mix by requiring utilities to draw 10 percent of their power from renewable sources; wind, solar and geothermal. The current market makes those forms of generation competitive.

A more-aggressive plan is proposed by a coalition of environmental groups that recommend a required 3-percent investment in conservation and renewable energy. The advantage is a quantifiable program that regulators can monitor and enforce.

Locke's list of ideas, with early, welcome hints of bipartisan support, create incentives for utilities and industry to invest in conservation, and traditional and renewable power-generating options.

This current energy crisis is alarming and unsettling, but also oddly familiar.

Mechanisms and institutions are already in place to weigh options, offer incentives, protect consumers and balance the interests of big business and public and private power generators and distributors.