Grant PUD ponders power demands, costs in draft IRP

EPHRATA — Grant County PUD commissioners are weighing action on a draft two-year update of the utility district’s plan to address increasing customer demands for electricity over the next two decades in the most cost-effective manner while meeting state clean-energy requirements.

The 2026 analysis, called an “integrated resource plan,” aims to incorporate what the district calls “a viable energy portfolio (while) preserving flexibility, managing costs, and reducing exposure to myriad uncertainties.”

Comments received by commissioners during a July 28 public hearing included requests for the PUD to ensure adequate power for Grant County’s public port districts based on their growth projections, questions about infrastructure needed to deliver additional power, and more communication with customers.

State law requires the district’s integrated resource plan to be updated every two years. Commissioners are scheduled to act on the draft during their Aug. 25 meeting. If approved, it must be submitted to the Washington Department of Commerce before Sept. 1.

Washington state’s Clean Energy Transformation Act has requirements calling for power producers to achieve an 80% “clean energy supply” — eliminating pollution-causing carbon emissions — by year 2030 and 100% by 2045. Some have questioned whether those goals are fiscally and environmentally realistic to achieve.

Grant PUD’s two Columbia River dams — Priest Rapids and Wanapum — provide mostly renewable hydropower, but customer demands for electricity are already exceeding their generation capacities.

To meet future needs over the 20-year IRP period, the district is looking at additional resources. Those include purchasing power from regional wholesale markets, adding 460 megawatts of solar power, 260 megawatts of battery storage capacity, and 12 megawatts of wind power.

Additionally, the PUD is considering a contract with the Bonneville Power Administration as a potential “provider of choice.”

A summary of the district’s IRP draft says the 20-year planning period “holds much uncertainty.” Future projections may be affected by shifts in clean energy policies, market prices, transmission costs, the capability and capacity to produce power immediately when needed, and a “wide range” of possibilities regarding future loads.

In the near term, the plan calls for adding power storage in years 2030-32 while delaying new solar power acquisitions to 2040 and beyond. “Our near-term need is capacity, not energy,” the summary states. During those interim years in the 2030s, the district can assess customer load requirements and continue evaluating geothermal, natural gas, and small modular nuclear reactors as potential power sources.

“With the use of (state) Renewable Energy Credits, our existing portfolio provides enough clean energy to satisfy expected CETA requirements until the 2040s,” the document states.

District says financial position looks “strong” 

In other business during Tuesday’s meeting, commissioners received a monthly update regarding the PUD’s fiscal outlook for 2026 and through years 2027-2031.  

Compared to a prior forecast, staff noted there had been a “moderate increase” in maintenance-and-operations expenses and some projects costing more this year than previously anticipated. Combined, that resulted in a $10 million (3.28%) decrease in the district’s “change in net position,” which is now projected at $294.5 million.

But officials said the budget's "bottom line" still reflects a “strong financial position" as a result of "prudent cost management,” reduced power demands from some industrial customers which provided the district with more available energy to resell at a higher value on the wholesale market, and revenues received from the state’s Climate Commitment Act.

In the coming five years, the PUD has lowered its “retail revenue assumptions” for large industrial and evolving industry customers, but said the decrease may be offset by other “net power” revenues. During the same period, the district does not anticipate any significant changes in power demands from its residential, irrigation, agriculture and general-service customers.