April 2, 2003—Puget Sound Energy has released a strategy for meeting its customers’ energy needs with a portfolio featuring energy efficiency, renewable resources and efficient thermal-power generation. PSE recently signed a near-term agreement with PPM Energy to receive power from Stateline Wind Farm in Walla Walla, Wash. The agreement will provide PSE’s portfolio with 68,000 megawatt hours of renewable energy for a year.
PSE has set a goal to meet a minimum 5 percent of customers’ energy-supply needs with renewable resources by 2013.
The commitment to renewable energy is a key part of PSE’s plan, especially with some of the company’s existing purchased-power contracts already expiring. PSE soon will face a power-supply deficit of 300 average megawatts (aMW), enough to serve 300,000 homes. If this deficit is not addressed, PSE would be forced to rely more heavily on unpredictable wholesale markets for power to serve its customers.
The utility is targeting a minimum of 150 aMW in energy-efficiency savings over 10 years, enough energy to power 150,000 homes. PSE also plans to achieve 21 million therms in natural-gas savings over the same period of time, enough to serve 22,000 homes.
PSE plans to meet its remaining resource requirements through a mix of additional new energy supplies. The supply mix might include energy from purchased-power agreements, the purchase or development of new generating facilities and/or joint development of new generation facilities with others.
For more information, contact PSE at 888/831-7250.
