Resource Strategies Advisory Committee Gets Down to Business

The Council's advisory committees bring outside advice and diverse perspectives about future energy needs to the work of developing a regional power plan. Committee members come from a variety of organizations, including utilities, state regulatory commissions, tribes, and public interest groups.

Last month, the resource strategies advisory committee met to talk about what issues the Seventh Power Plan should address.

Much of the discussion centered on the issue of carbon regulation, especially the EPA's proposed rules, 111(d) and 111(b), which seek to reduce carbon emissions from both new and existing energy resources.

Committee members discussed how the plan should address the proposed rules, and while there were differences in opinion on if and how to model them, there was wide agreement on the usefulness of modeling a variety of scenarios to get an understanding of how lowering carbon would affect the environment and resource costs.

Some comments made in the meeting included:

• From a business viewpoint, there is a need for certainty, so looking at sensitivities and scenarios would be helpful
• Address 4-5 major uncertainties of 111(d); distill to a handful of "what ifs" to understand how it could affect the region
• Make the analysis available to the states over the course of the plan's development
• Explore the value of a regional approach to meeting the rules targets
• Identify a baseline carbon cost
• Identify issues for small utilities; articulate the problem, but don't try to solve it; outcome could be a forum
• Explore non-energy benefits of energy efficiency
• Think about the customer perspective

The Council plans to begin its scenario modeling early next year when its redeveloped regional portfolio model is up and running. This will be another opportunity for stakeholders to participate and add their input.

Also, in a related issue, the Council released a paper on its methodology for quantifying the environmental effects of new resources, as required by the Northwest Power Act. One of the important questions in the paper is whether the Council should try to account for residual environmental impacts. Environmental regulation usually controls or mitigates for some portion, even a significant portion, of the effects on the environment from new resources. Those that are beyond the reach of regulation are the residual effects.

The Council is scheduled to discuss this and may approve a methodology to use in developing the Seventh Power Plan at its December meeting.