Energy in the West

The governors of the west have gotten together and passed a clean energy policy resolution based on two years of research gathered by over 250 participants from a wide range of organizations, from the National Mining Association to the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project. While it may not be perfect, it's something. And something's not nothing.

The Western Governors' Association is a group, as the name indicates, of governors in the western states. Specifically, these western states:


and, additionally, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa.

In 2004 the WGA held the North American Energy Summit which led to the Clean and Diversified Energy Initiative. This initiative established three goals for the western states:

• Develop an additional 30,000 megawatts of clean energy by 2015
• Achieve a 20% increase in energy efficiency by 2020
  
• Ensure a reliable and secure transmission grid for the next 25 years

The Clean and Diversified Energy Advisory Committee (CDEAC) was created to make recommendations for meeting these goals. The CDEAC was made up of subject-grouped "task forces" charged with making policy recommendations in their areas of expertise. These areas were:

• Advanced Coal
• Biomass
• Energy Efficiency
• Geothermal
• Solar
• Transmission
• Wind

The CDEAC had a set of guidelines to follow while forming their policy recommendations. As outlined in their report "Clean Energy, a Strong Economy and a Healthy Environment" each task force had to:

• Examine the deliverability and adequacy of energy resources, including an assessment of promising new resources and technologies;


• Examine the obstacles to both intrastate and interstate transmission siting and construction in order to access clean energy resources;


• Consider price, reliability, and the mitigation of environmental impacts of all recommendations;


• Develop energy efficiency and conservation recommendations that take into account all types of energy used in facilities, not just electricity;
  


• Address both technical and policy issues.

Additionally, the WGA stressed the importance of policies that were non-mandatory and incentives-based.

The task forces made production recommendations for each energy resource by the year 2015:

• Advanced Coal: 5,000 MW
• Obviously coal is neither an economically limited or a renewable resource. "Advanced Coal" refers to new technologies such as integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC), oxy-combustion and carbon capture and sequestration.
• For (a lot) more information see Appendix A of the CDEAC report.
• Biomass: 10,000 MW
• Geothermal: 5,600 MW
• Solar: 10,000 MW
• Wind: 5,000 - 9,175 MW
• With increased transmission capabilities: 25,000 MW

The CDEAC appears optimistic that an additional 30,000 MW, provided by a diverse portfolio, is well within reach. It even went so far as to say that transmission issues shouldn't be a problem:

A Transmission Task Force examined this cross cutting issue and concluded that while transmission is always a large consideration with respect to the location of new generating facilities, transmission in and of itself should not be a barrier to achieving the 30,000 MW goal.

The CDEAC calls the energy efficiency goal of 20% by 2020 a "win-win" for consumers and businesses. The benefits of this increase, as outlined in the CDEAC report are:

• 48,000 MW of avoided power plant construction during 2005 - 2020
• Small reduction in electricity prices in the latter part of study period
• $53 billion in net economic benefits for consumers and businesses
• Substantial avoidance of power plant emissions
• Approximately 1.8 trillion gallons of water savings during 2005 - 2020

The CDEAC's recommendation is to utilize current "best practice" methods to increase efficiency to reach the 20% by 2020 goal. It identifies these methods as:

• Electricity and natural gas energy efficiency programs where energy efficiency is considered a resource and all cost effective savings are pursued with investments of a percentage of revenues
• State-of-the-art building codes. training, enforcement and “beyond code” incentive programs
• State appliance efficiency standards on products not covered by federal standards
• RD&D and technology transfer
• Public sector initiatives including aggressive energy efficiency and conservation goals for public buildings
• Tax credits and other financial incentives
• Pricing and incentive regulation policies
• Regional cooperation and market transformation efforts

Two days ago, on the 11th, the WGA passed the policy resolution Clean and Diversified Energy for the West based on the CDEAC recommendations.

Renewable Portfolio Standards are being implemented in an increasing number of western states so it makes sense for the WGA to anticipate these energy obligations. While I know that coal will continue to dominate even this energy game it's nice to hear words like "renewable," "solar," "wind" and "clean" coming out of these states: