washington business
How close are we to experiencing blackouts , brownouts or mandatory curtailment in Washington state ?
We don ’ t know the answer that . In the Northwest we live on the cliff ’ s edge , because we have hydropower . How much water comes down that river makes an incredible difference as to whether you ’ re long by a big , big margin or at an extreme risk of blackouts and brownouts . So what happened in 2001 is we had the second-worst water year in recorded history . We ’ ve now had a series of good water years in the Northwest . Each year you ’ re just rolling the dice on water . Resource adequacy standards should be built in a way that we will be resource adequate even under critical streamflow conditions . But until you have that standard in place and people are actually meeting it , then we should always be nervous as we enter a water year .
What would that look like to have adequate sources when we ’ re 70 % hydro dependent ?
We were adequate with the old system that had a pretty heavy reliance on fossil fuels . We can be with a new system that is heavily reliant on clean energy resources , but the characteristics that those resources bring to the table are different . The West is already and will increasingly be relying on solar . When the sun goes down in the late afternoon you ’ re not getting any production out of it , and you have to address that . We also have what is called a temperature excursion problem . When you have three to five days of either really high temperatures or really low temperatures , that basically drains the system of energy .
Can you explain to the layman why can ’ t we just put a bunch of batteries in and store the solar energy ?
The technology for batteries is really pretty limited to two- to four-hour storage . The Holy Grail in the battery world is to get to what ’ s called long-duration storage . Eight hours , even some folks are working on hundred-hour storage . When that comes along that will be a game-changer .
steve wright at a glance
Steve Wright earned an undergraduate degree from Central Michigan University and a graduate degree in public administration from the University of Oregon .
He spent 32 years working at the Bonneville Power Administration , including 13 years as BPA administrator and CEO . He retired in 2013 , took six months off , and then accepted the position of general manager for Chelan County PUD . He retired ( again ) at the end of 2021 .
Wright and his wife of 33 years have three children .
There is a growing push by some officials at the state and federal level to remove the lower Snake River dams . That would cost tens of billions of dollars in lost baseload power generation , barge transportation routes and water supplies for irrigation . What are your thoughts on the lower Snake River dams ?
I want to suggest that we use a different term than baseload because the key thing that we need in the new power system world is flexible generation when solar and wind becomes unavailable or too available , either way . The lower Snake River Dams have that capability to help get the system through really difficult times . And it does so in a way that provides a carbon-free resource .
We will need a new , what is today a mystery resource , which will provide dispatchable clean capacity at a reasonable cost . We have lots of ideas about what it could be . It could be small modular reactors , it could be hydrogen production , it could be long-duration battery storage , there are people who are interested in flywheels as a concept . We will need a massive breakthrough in technology to be able to get deep decarbonisation . The lower Snake River Dams provide that capability today .
Salmon runs are an important part of our state ’ s cultural and ecological heritage . What do you wish more people understood about salmon and the hydroelectric system ? Can salmon and dams coexist ?
Habitat restoration is happening all the way across the Columbia River basin in very small ways that are harder to see . I go visit these projects in the Wenatchee and the Entiat and the Methow and I see salmon go to places they never went before . The value that was created from that , I think , has not been understood and it ’ s certainly been understated .
How did that happen ? It happened because there was revenue from the sale of electric power from federal dams . So taking out the federal dams is going to substantially reduce the revenue that will be available for these kinds of activities .
I don ’ t think that folks are understanding that trade-off . It ’ s not just a question of whether we ’ re going to breach the lower Snake River dams . It ’ s a bigger question of , is breaching the dams a more valuable recovery measure than the off-site habitat mitigation and hatchery mitigation that is currently being funded by those dams .
How can Washington retain its competitive advantage in affordable , reliable power as we work to green the grid ?
Well , number one , you want to keep the dams , because the reason we ’ re up there in that position is because we have hydropower . You know , we just are blessed with a very big river on the side of a very big hill . That ’ s the whole reason it plays out this way .
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