Capacity: The Hidden Treasure in Energy Efficiency
The Seventh Northwest Conservation and Electric Power Plan
Due largely to the abundance of hydroelectric resource, the Pacific Northwest historically has had adequate resources to meet the region’s peak demand for power. Thus, the region’s utilities typically have planned for new resources based on the need for energy. However, with the planned retirements of regional coal plants, the Pacific Northwest’s resource adequacy planning has increasingly shifted to fulfilling capacity needs. In other words, the region’s power system gradually has become less energy constrained and more capacity constrained.
The Seventh Northwest Conservation and Electric Power Plan, published in February 2016, estimates that 4,300 average megawatts (aMW) of cost-effective electricity savings are achievable over the course of the Plan’s 20-year horizon. The Plan further estimates that these savings will translate into significant capacity benefits of about 7,900 MW during the regional winter peak (6:00 p.m. on weekdays in December, January, and February) and 5,500 MW during the summer peak (6:00 p.m. on weekdays in July and August) in the Plan’s final year. The Plan further indicates that, combined with additional capacity savings at least 600 MW of demand response, the region will have sufficient system resources to meet most of its capacity needs over the next ten years.
To ensure that the expected reductions in capacity requirements from identified energy efficiency and demand response resources are reliable, the Plan directed the Northwest Regional Technical Forum (RTF), a technical advisory committee to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s, to develop quality guidelines to validate the reliability of capacity savings from energy efficiency. In response, the RTF launched a study to investigate the methods, tools, and data used in the Plan to develop the reported capacity values. The project will significantly contribute to the methods used to capture energy efficiency’s capacity contributions. This presentation describes the electric resource planning framework in the Northwest, provides the project’s background, and reports the project’s findings. Download the presentation to learn more.
Presented at the ACEEE National Conference on Energy Efficiency as a Resource on November 1, 2017. Presentation by Jennifer Light of Northwest Power and Conservation Council and Lakin Garth of Cadmus.