(The Center Square) – As Washington state invests in the electrification of its public transportation fleet while preparing for a ban on privately owned new gasoline-powered vehicles in 2035, regional energy stakeholders are addressing the practical issues of having the transmission lines necessary to meet demand.
At the same time, the state Legislature may give nuclear energy a renewed focus as a recent study warns of a regional energy resource gap beginning in 2026.
Western Transmission Expansion Coalition, or WestTEC, is an effort to create a transmission study for the regional energy grid that includes Washington along with states like Oregon, California, Colorado, Montana and Utah.
According to Energy Strategies Principal Keegan Moyer, acting on behalf of WestTEC, the grid for those states will see peak demands to increase by approximately 30% by 2035, with the need for about 20 gigawatts of resources per year. WestTEC’s 10-year study calls for over 12,200 miles of either significant upgrades or additions to it, with an estimate price tag of $56 billion.
However, Moyer told the Joint Committee on Energy Supply, Energy Conservation, and Energy Resilience at its Wednesday meeting that “transmission is not easy to build.”
“There’s kind of an underlying issue with all of those factors, which is transmission is sort of a common constraint underlying all of these challenges,” he said. “So this network of lines, wires, equipment that helps to deliver power to our homes and businesses from where it’s made is really short on capacity.”
He added that without the additional infrastructure, “our modeling indicates that we’ve failed to meet those [federal] standards, which could compromise grid reliability.”
According to Moyer, one of every 8 miles of transmission lines called for in their 10-year plan are upgrades to existing right of ways; additionally, one out of every 8 miles of transmission is currently under construction.
The need for expanded transmission infrastructure coincides with increased demand cased in part by “policy-driven electric vehicle adoption” and “anticipated data center interconnection,” according to a recent Pacific Northwest Resource Adequacy study. The study warned of a resource gap starting next year, noting that “preferred resources such as wind, solar and batteries make only small contributions to meeting resource adequacy needs.”
The study also noted that “timely development of all resources is extremely challenging due to permitting and interconnection delays, federal policy headwinds, and cost pressures,” according to a presentation to the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission.
In addition to the state’s electrification of the public and private transportation sector, the 2019 Clean Energy Transformation Act requires utilities to shift away from carbon emitting energy sources in favor of clean energy; the ultimate goal is for utilities to provide carbon-free energy by 2045.
The anticipated grid load growth, loss of reliable carbon emitting energy, and the inadequacy of some alternative energy sources could inspire state lawmakers to turn elsewhere to address those needs. House Bill 2090 pre-filed by Rep. Stephanie Barnard, R-Pasco, and cosponsored by Democrat Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, D-Seattle, would add advanced nuclear power to the state’s energy strategy. Nuclear energy is considered a “non-emitting” energy source under CETA.
The bill language notes that “advanced nuclear power technologies offer a particularly efficient pathway” to replacing carbon emitting energy sources “because nuclear generation operates at a significantly higher capacity factor than wind or solar resources, thereby producing substantially more clean, firm energy. As a result, the addition of advanced fission nuclear power can reduce the total number of new generating facilities, transmission interconnections, and land area otherwise required to meet Washington’s decarbonization goals.”
