Northwest Power and Conservation Council releases 6th Power Plan
Replacing the power from the lower Snake River dams won't raise power bills
The Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC) is a 30-year-old agency created by Congress to guide Pacific Northwest energy choices. Every five years, the Council’s eight governor-appointed members – two each from Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon -- issues a new 20-year plan assessing regional electric needs and identifying which resources to use in meeting them.
The Council's just-approved Sixth Northwest Power and Conservation Plan affects salmon restoration efforts and national energy policy in several ways:
- The plan demonstrates that the Northwest can easily and affordably meet all anticipated growth in electric demand over the next 20 years almost entirely with energy efficiency and new renewable resources. We need no new coal plants intensifying the climate changes already bringing river temperatures to levels lethal to fish.
- It includes – for the first time – an assessment of the costs of replacing the power now produced by the four lower Snake River dams if and when they must be removed to protect and restore endangered wild salmon and steelhead.
The Council stops short of recommending the closure of coal plants now serving the Northwest, an action it says is necessary to meet state and regional commitments to reduced carbon emissions. Nor does it endorse lower Snake River dam breaching, even though its study shows replacing the dams' energy wouldn’t raise utility bills at all.
That analysis replaces the dams' output with about 200 megawatts of new natural-gas-fired power (one small plant) and 145 average megawatts of additional, readily available conservation. Power rates might increase 2-4 percent, but because of all the cheaper-than-power energy efficiency in the plan, overall consumer bills actually would decline. That’s great news for salmon and fishermen and Northwest energy customers! And it’s further evidence that bringing together stakeholders to work collaboratively on a legal and comprehensive solution to the salmon crisis is the way to go, and the way to go right now!
Northwest can meet most energy needs with conservation, council says - Rocky Barker, Idaho Statesman
Visit the NW Energy Coalition - one of Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition's key partners.
