Region faces power crisis demanding concerted action

Oregon has joined Washington in pledging to put its electric utilities on a carbon-neutral footing by 2040. Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek noted the two states had been “leading the way for years on courageous state policies to fight climate change.”

But, in point of fact, Oregon ranks 47th and Washington 50th in approval of major new solar and wind projects over the last 10 years.

The principal bottleneck here is the federal Bonneville Power Administration, which owns and operates the Northwest power grid. It signed off on only one of 469 major project applications over that period, giving it an approval rate of 0.2%, lowest in the nation. In contrast, Texas, unique among the 50 states in overseeing its own power grid, approved a national leading 28%

Legislation has been introduced in both Oregon and Washington to carve out a meaningful state role in the response to transmission grid needs, in hopes of breaking things loose on the renewables front. However, nothing has come of it so far.

With off-shore wind stalled, the Northwest’s renewable energy mix consists of three elements — hydro, land-based wind and solar. Hydro remains the big dog, serving to meet about 35% of total demand in Oregon and 50% in Washington, but its share has been slipping.

The yawning local gap between talk and action was brought to light largely through the in-depth reporting of Tony Schick and Monica Samayoa of Oregon Public Broadcasting, working in partnership with Pro Publica’s Local Reporting Network. Here are some of their more notable findings:

State and federal officials engaged in a years-long project to turn floating offshore wind technology into a powerful new source of renewable energy off the Oregon Coast at Bandon. Then it all fell victim to a cascade of opposition in the span of a single week last fall, less than three weeks before a planned auction of offshore leases,

Advocates termed offshore development crucial to Oregon’s ambitious sustainability goals, but said the opposition scared off skittish investors, leading them to regard the East Coast as a better bet. Tribal, environmental, tourism and commercial fishing advocates all expressed reservations, as did local residents and landowners.

When it comes to development of major new land-based wind and solar projects in the last 10 years, Oregon and Washington were joined down near the bottom by Louisiana, Maine, New Hampshire, Arkansas and Idaho. Leading the way up top were Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Texas and Iowa, with Illinois and Indiana trailing not far behind.

The contribution of renewables rose 452% percent in Kansas, 411% in Nebraska and 406% in New Mexico over the period. By contrast, it rose just 4% in Oregon, and actually fell 2% in Washington.

Iowa, a ruby red state putting little stock in the climate change threat, is managing to generate three times as much wind power as Oregon. And while the two states are about even in both population and wind potential, Oregon has a lot more acreage to work with.

But Iowa’s production pales in comparison to that of Texas.

The longstanding national oil and gas powerhouse has become the nation’s leading producer of wind and solar in the last few years. Last year alone, it brought enough new renewable energy online to power the entire Northwest.

The trick in Texas in a high approval rate and quick turnaround time for projects, abetted by unfettered state control of the power grid. Over the last 10 years, Texas projects have moved from approval to production in a median of 19 months, lightning fast for the industry.

Bonneville stands at the other end of the spectrum.

There are hundreds of applications for major wind and solar projects languishing with Bonneville, dating back more than 15 years. Together, they would be capable, at least theoretically, of producing a staggering 200,000 megawatts of clean, renewable power.

The hangup with Bonneville is lack of transmission capacity. It added almost 5,000 miles of new line between 1960 and 1990, but only 500 miles in the ‘90s and just one mile in the last five years. Unfortunately, you can’t develop a new generation facility without a reliable way to get the output to market.

What’s more, while development of new wind and solar power centers has stalled in Oregon, packages mixing tax breaks with other enticing incentives have made the state a national leader in large-scale data centers operated by the likes of Amazon, Google and Facebook. And while these server farms typically employ very few workers, they gobble up vast amounts of power and eat up huge chunks of capacity on an already overtaxed power grid.

At last count, Oregon was home to 131 such centers. Many are located down the valley or along the coast, but Oregon’s dry, sparsely-populated east side is becoming increasingly popular, to the point where Boardman is up to 30 centers, Umatilla 16, and Prineville and Hermiston 15 each.

With hydro production slipping, gas-fired production static, renewable production stalled and data centers driving demand upward, the Northwest is having to import increasingly expensive power during winter cold spells. Over the last five years, that’s contributed to a 50% percent increase in rates for customers of investor-owned utilities.

The BPA acknowledges a need to develop new transmission capacity and speed up its notoriously sluggish approval process.

But during his first week in office, President Trump issued executive orders halting windpower projects and freezing renewables funding on the federal level. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency ordered funding and staffing cuts at agencies crucial to renewable energy development, including the BPA. So prospects for meaningful improvement at the agency seem dim at best.

We see only one way for Oregon and Washington to make credible amends — take legislative steps to deal themselves into the grid expansion and project connection process. It’s too late for this session, but not too late to begin planning an all-out push for next session.