from the chair
Powering a Stronger Washington
Jason Thackston
Rarely do my roles as chair of the AWB board and chief strategy officer at Avista come together as perfectly as they did on a sunny day in early June, when I joined leaders from across the state to help launch an exciting new vision for the future of our beautiful state.
Washington in the Making 2040 is a big-picture look at how we can and should shape our growing state far beyond the next legislative session or election. Drawing upon thousands of people’ s perspectives statewide, it sets us on a clear direction for how we can preserve and strengthen what’ s best about Washington over the next 15 years.
At our launch event, we discussed the key pillars of Washington in the Making 2040: talent and workforce, infrastructure and connectivity, business environment, and keeping our strong sense of place and community.
I was honored to help speak about the crucial role of power generation and transmission. It’ s a pressing issue, since our ability to generate and transmit electricity is not growing at anywhere near the rate that energy demands continue to increase— whether from electric cars, data centers or electrifying new homes.
Thanks to our extensive hydroelectric system, Washington has long had some of the most affordable, reliable and clean electricity in the nation. But it won’ t keep up with growing demand across the state.
As an example, we have technology companies reaching out to us in the Spokane area. They want to consume large amounts of electricity— in some cases, as much as a quarter of our existing peak load. That’ s 25 percent of all our existing peak usage in our service territory— within the next few years. That’ s just mind-boggling.
So we need new generation capacity and we need to work with our political leaders to find a balance of what’ s clean, affordable and still reliable for our state.
Alongside new generation, it’ s just as important to have the transmission infrastructure in place to carry that energy to where it’ s needed.
You’ d be surprised at how long it takes to get transmission permitted these days. Between state and federal involvement, it takes more than 10 years to get a transmission line even permitted— and that’ s before you can start construction.
And as we add renewables to an energy system that is among the greenest in the nation, natural gas needs to remain a part of the energy ecosystem. We also will benefit from advances in nuclear power production that is reliable and free of greenhouse gas emissions.
Washington is a powerhouse of energy and innovation. For generations, our low-cost energy has given us an advantage over other states. But if we just stay the course, we put at risk our ability to serve customers in a way that keeps energy prices low and affordable.
We need to think in an integrated way about how to solve these problems. One of the challenges that we’ ve faced as utilities is a misalignment among legislation, regulation, technology, the cost of that technology, and in solving for that in a way that preserves affordability.
We are one of the lowest-cost energy providers in the nation. We want to preserve that affordability while also making progress in the clean energy goals that we have as companies and that we have as a state.
AWB and employers can play a unique role in bringing together regulators, policy-makers and energy producers to think holistically about these challenges.
If we do this well over the next 15 years, our state will continue to enjoy a great quality of life with innovative businesses that support their communities and lead the nation.
Now that’ s an energetic vision we can all get behind.
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