Resource Planning
Clean Energy Implementation Plan
In 2019, Governor Inslee signed the Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA) into law. The Act established milestones for utilities to be greenhouse gas neutral by 2030 and carbon free by 2045. Benton PUD’s electricity supply is already over 90% carbon free primarily due to hydroelectric and nuclear power. The first milestone requests a utility to prepare and publish a four-year clean energy implementation plan (CEIP) by January 1, 2022 with specific targets for energy efficiency, demand response and renewable energy targets and any additional actions to support an equitable transition to the state's clean energy goals.
Benton PUD held two public meetings to provide an overview of the CEIP requirements and to solicit community input into the development of the CEIP. To hear and read more about Benton PUD’s adopted 2022 CEIP, click on the link below:
Final Clean Energy Implementation Plan
Commission Packet, CEIP Public Meeting – August 24, 2021
Commission Packet, CEIP Public Meeting - July 27, 2021
Load Forecast
Benton PUD prepares an annual Load Forecast to estimate its future customer count and energy sales for at least the next ten years. The Load Forecast is a key input into Benton PUD's power supply planning, budgeting, rate analysis, and capital improvement plans.
Integrated Resource Plan
The Washington State Electric Utility Resource Plans law, RCW 19.280, requires electric utilities serving 25,000 or more customers, that are not load-following customers of the Bonneville Power Administration, to develop comprehensive integrated resource plans that explain the mix of generation and demand-side resources they plan to use to meet their customers’ electricity needs in both the long-term and the short-term at the lowest reasonable cost and risk to the utility and its ratepayers.
Qualifying utilities are required to produce a full plan every four years and provide an update to the full plan every two years. The plan must include a range of load forecasts over a ten-year time horizon, an assessment of feasible conservation and efficiency resources, an assessment of supply-side generation resources, an economic appraisal of renewable and non-renewable resources, a preferred plan for meeting the utility’s requirements and a short-term action plan. The update ensures the process remains fluid and new issues, information and emerging technologies are incorporated into the plan on a regular basis.
The 2022 Integrated Resource Plan Progress Report was approved on August 9, 2022.
Resolution No. 2608 - Adopting the 2022 Integrated Resource Plan Progress Report
The 2020 Integrated Resource Plan was approved on August 11, 2020.
Resolution No. 2549 - Adopting the 2020 Integrated Resource Plan
2020 Integrated Resource Plan
Conservation Potential Assessment
The Washington State Energy Independence Act requires electric utilities serving 25,000 or more customers to purse all conservation that is cost-effective, reliable and feasible. By January 1 of each even-numbered year, a utility must identify its achievable cost-effective conservation potential for the upcoming ten years and a biennial target.
The Benton PUD Board of Commissioners held a special meeting on October 26, 2021 to accept public comment on Benton PUD’s 2022 Conservation Potential Assessment (CPA) – Final Report (for the period 2022-2031) and adopted the CPA on October 26, 2021. The CPA identified Benton PUD’s ten-year cost-effective conservation potential as 11.72 aMW, and the two-year biennial target of 1.52 aMW.
2022-2031 Ten-Year Cost-Effective Resource Conservation Potential and 2022-2031 Biennial Target
Surplus Energy
When Benton PUD has surplus energy resources, we are required to offer it into the region before selling out of the region pursuant to the Bonneville Power Administration’s policy on Determining Net Requirements of Pacific Northwest Utility Customers and the Northwest Power Act, sections 5(b)(1) and 9(c). Information regarding available surplus electric energy is available from The Energy Authority (TEA), a power management organization for public power utilities.