Progress to Redevelop Regional Portfolio Model on Schedule

The Council uses an integrated resource planning model, called the regional portfolio model, to identify adaptive, least-cost resource strategies for the region.

In 2013, the Council decided to redevelop the RPM to take advantage of current software technologies, provide increased accessibility to the model, and to get it ready for use in the Seventh Power Plan. The original version of the model was used in developing the Council’s Fifth and Sixth Northwest Power Plans.

At the Council's November power committee meeting, Cory Welch, project manager for Navigant, the consulting firm hired to help redevelop the model, gave a demonstration of how part of the rebuilt model would be used, focusing on a few key inputs that tend to have a significant influence on results. 

Along with enhancing the model's functionality in assessing risk, making it more transparent and useful for other planning efforts — individual utilities — for example, was another critical goal of the project. So far, the redeveloped RPM is on track for completion in early 2015, and comments about its progress have been favorable.

A day earlier, the Council's system analysis advisory committee had a more in-depth demonstration, and attendees praised the design interface, in particular, which gives users the ability to explore how inputs affect the outcome.