Conservationists push renewable energy bill

OLYMPIA – A coalition of conservationists and clean energy advocates filed an initiative Wednesday that would require Washington state utility companies to increase the amount of renewable sources in their electricity supply to 15 percent by 2020.

Washington would join 20 other states and the District of Columbia that have a so-called renewable portfolio standard; Maine has the highest, at 30 percent.

Under the initiative, which would also require utilities to invest in energy conservation programs, utilities with more than 25,000 customers would have to meet 15 percent of their annual load with resources such as wind power, solar energy and sewage gas.

Supporters say such a move would stabilize rates for electricity customers, offer economic development opportunities for rural communities and add jobs, all while helping lower emissions.

“This initiative will secure Washington’s energy future,” said Sara Patton, executive director of the NW Energy Coalition, one of several groups that make up Washingtonians for Energy Security.

Supporters said they decided to go the initiative route after failing to get measures through the Legislature in past years.

Under current law, utilities are already required to offer customers the option of investing in renewable energy, by paying extra on their monthly bill.

“We’re starting a process to follow common sense, and homegrown renewable energy for Washington is common sense,” said U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Shoreline. “We want to be part of the future.”

Initiative backers need to collect nearly 225,000 signatures in order to make the November ballot.

Former Bonneville Power Administration Administrator Randy Hardy noted that several utilities in the region already use renewable resources as part of their energy portfolios. While he said some companies may have concerns about the 2020 mandate, he said he wouldn’t support the initiative if he didn’t think it was doable.

“Fifteen percent is not a huge number,” he said. “We’re already well on the way there. The initiative gives you the certainty that it will actually be accomplished at a particular level.”

He said that it would be helpful in the long run for utilities to diversify their resource base even more, to “insulate the consumers of the state against the price shocks that we’re liable to get from $70-a-barrel oil prices or very high natural gas prices.”

In December, Puget Sound Energy began operating a $200 million wind farm in southeastern Washington and has said it expects to have a second wind farm operating later this year in Kittitas County.

PSE, which did not immediately return a phone call Wednesday, serves nearly 1 million electricity customers and more than 668,000 natural gas customers, primarily in the Puget Sound region.

A spokesman for Avista Corp., which has 330,000 electricity customers in Washington and Idaho and 265,000 gas customers in Washington, said he hadn’t yet seen the initiative, but said the idea of a mandate “sometimes can be problematic in that you may need to purchase a resource that is more expensive.”

Spokesman Hugh Imhof noted that Avista is already on course to use more renewables, like wind, in its portfolio.

Patton noted that under the initiative, if there is more than a 4 percent increase in rates, the utilities are allowed to meet a lesser standard.

Washingtonians for Energy Security includes the NW Energy Coalition, Climate Solutions, Renewable Northwest Project, Sierra Club Cascade Chapter, NW Energy Efficiency Council, Audubon Washington, United Steelworkers and WashPIRG.