Our Reporting Showed Washington Ranks Last in Green Energy Growth. Now the State Is Working to Speed It Up.
Same show, different day.
Washington state has launched a sweeping effort to speed up construction of renewable energy projects, prompted by reporting from Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica that chronicled how the state came to rank dead last in the nation for renewable energy growth.
Washington’s Department of Commerce, which works on state energy policy, has offered up state employees to help the federal Bonneville Power Administration process its backlog of renewable energy projects — though it remains uncertain whether the agency will accept the offer. Bonneville, which owns 75% of the Northwest’s power grid, must sign off before wind and solar developers who wish to connect to its grid can break ground.
Meanwhile, four state agencies have recommended that Washington’s Legislature provide incentives for utilities to upgrade transmission lines, plan out “microgrid” energy projects that don’t need to connect to Bonneville’s power lines and create a new state agency that would plan and potentially pay for major new transmission corridors. A bill to create such an authority had a hearing on Jan 21.
The Commerce Department, Department of Ecology, Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council and Utilities and Transportation Commission are also meeting regularly to diagnose what’s holding up more than a dozen high-priority wind, solar and energy storage projects that could make an outsize difference.
Joe Nguyễn, who recently stepped down as the state’s commerce director, said there’s added urgency to get the work done since OPB and ProPublica last year showed that other states like Iowa and Texas have made far more progress than Washington.
“We’re forcing these tough conversations that have never been done before,” Nguyễn, a former state senator who helped pass Washington’s law setting a deadline to go carbon-free, said during a recent public forum. He spoke at the panel just before leaving the state Commerce Department in January to take a job as head of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.
“We probably have to modify some policies, we’re going to amend some things, we have to make strategic investments, but I think that’s a good thing,” Nguyễn said at the forum. “I’m not daunted by the task.”
Under Bonneville, projects face longer odds of successfully connecting to the electrical grid than anywhere else in the country, OPB and ProPublica found.
The federal agency weighs how many new transmission lines and substations will be needed to carry the added load, and it has historically been slow to pay for such upgrades, renewable energy advocates have said. Often the burden falls on the builders of the wind and solar projects.
Washington and Oregon lawmakers failed to account for this obstacle when they required electric utilities to phase out fossil fuels. Combined with rapid growth in electricity demand from new data centers powering artificial intelligence, studies now predict rolling blackouts in the Pacific Northwest within the next five years.
Inspired by OPB and ProPublica’s reporting, the Seattle nonprofit Clean & Prosperous published a report this month identifying energy high-potential projects that could generate enough power for 7 million homes and …
Same show, different day.
Washington state has launched a sweeping effort to speed up construction of renewable energy projects, prompted by reporting from Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica that chronicled how the state came to rank dead last in the nation for renewable energy growth.
Washington’s Department of Commerce, which works on state energy policy, has offered up state employees to help the federal Bonneville Power Administration process its backlog of renewable energy projects — though it remains uncertain whether the agency will accept the offer. Bonneville, which owns 75% of the Northwest’s power grid, must sign off before wind and solar developers who wish to connect to its grid can break ground.
Meanwhile, four state agencies have recommended that Washington’s Legislature provide incentives for utilities to upgrade transmission lines, plan out “microgrid” energy projects that don’t need to connect to Bonneville’s power lines and create a new state agency that would plan and potentially pay for major new transmission corridors. A bill to create such an authority had a hearing on Jan 21.
The Commerce Department, Department of Ecology, Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council and Utilities and Transportation Commission are also meeting regularly to diagnose what’s holding up more than a dozen high-priority wind, solar and energy storage projects that could make an outsize difference.
Joe Nguyễn, who recently stepped down as the state’s commerce director, said there’s added urgency to get the work done since OPB and ProPublica last year showed that other states like Iowa and Texas have made far more progress than Washington.
“We’re forcing these tough conversations that have never been done before,” Nguyễn, a former state senator who helped pass Washington’s law setting a deadline to go carbon-free, said during a recent public forum. He spoke at the panel just before leaving the state Commerce Department in January to take a job as head of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.
“We probably have to modify some policies, we’re going to amend some things, we have to make strategic investments, but I think that’s a good thing,” Nguyễn said at the forum. “I’m not daunted by the task.”
Under Bonneville, projects face longer odds of successfully connecting to the electrical grid than anywhere else in the country, OPB and ProPublica found.
The federal agency weighs how many new transmission lines and substations will be needed to carry the added load, and it has historically been slow to pay for such upgrades, renewable energy advocates have said. Often the burden falls on the builders of the wind and solar projects.
Washington and Oregon lawmakers failed to account for this obstacle when they required electric utilities to phase out fossil fuels. Combined with rapid growth in electricity demand from new data centers powering artificial intelligence, studies now predict rolling blackouts in the Pacific Northwest within the next five years.
Inspired by OPB and ProPublica’s reporting, the Seattle nonprofit Clean & Prosperous published a report this month identifying energy high-potential projects that could generate enough power for 7 million homes and …
Our Reporting Showed Washington Ranks Last in Green Energy Growth. Now the State Is Working to Speed It Up.
Same show, different day.
Washington state has launched a sweeping effort to speed up construction of renewable energy projects, prompted by reporting from Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica that chronicled how the state came to rank dead last in the nation for renewable energy growth.
Washington’s Department of Commerce, which works on state energy policy, has offered up state employees to help the federal Bonneville Power Administration process its backlog of renewable energy projects — though it remains uncertain whether the agency will accept the offer. Bonneville, which owns 75% of the Northwest’s power grid, must sign off before wind and solar developers who wish to connect to its grid can break ground.
Meanwhile, four state agencies have recommended that Washington’s Legislature provide incentives for utilities to upgrade transmission lines, plan out “microgrid” energy projects that don’t need to connect to Bonneville’s power lines and create a new state agency that would plan and potentially pay for major new transmission corridors. A bill to create such an authority had a hearing on Jan 21.
The Commerce Department, Department of Ecology, Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council and Utilities and Transportation Commission are also meeting regularly to diagnose what’s holding up more than a dozen high-priority wind, solar and energy storage projects that could make an outsize difference.
Joe Nguyễn, who recently stepped down as the state’s commerce director, said there’s added urgency to get the work done since OPB and ProPublica last year showed that other states like Iowa and Texas have made far more progress than Washington.
“We’re forcing these tough conversations that have never been done before,” Nguyễn, a former state senator who helped pass Washington’s law setting a deadline to go carbon-free, said during a recent public forum. He spoke at the panel just before leaving the state Commerce Department in January to take a job as head of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.
“We probably have to modify some policies, we’re going to amend some things, we have to make strategic investments, but I think that’s a good thing,” Nguyễn said at the forum. “I’m not daunted by the task.”
Under Bonneville, projects face longer odds of successfully connecting to the electrical grid than anywhere else in the country, OPB and ProPublica found.
The federal agency weighs how many new transmission lines and substations will be needed to carry the added load, and it has historically been slow to pay for such upgrades, renewable energy advocates have said. Often the burden falls on the builders of the wind and solar projects.
Washington and Oregon lawmakers failed to account for this obstacle when they required electric utilities to phase out fossil fuels. Combined with rapid growth in electricity demand from new data centers powering artificial intelligence, studies now predict rolling blackouts in the Pacific Northwest within the next five years.
Inspired by OPB and ProPublica’s reporting, the Seattle nonprofit Clean & Prosperous published a report this month identifying energy high-potential projects that could generate enough power for 7 million homes and …
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