An independent consulting firm has published a report that supports Puget Sound Energy’s claims — and the method used to reach its conclusion — that population growth and energy consumption will likely cause capacity issues for the power company in the near future and winter outages for customers as soon as winter 2017.
The city commissioned Utility System Efficiencies in December — at up to $100,000 — to determine if PSE’s Energize Eastside project was necessary within the timeline provided by the energy company and whether its estimated load forecasts correctly identified capacity issues in the future.
The independent study was partly prompted by the Coalition of Eastside Neighborhoods for Sensible Energy, who argue running 18 miles of 230kV lines between Redmond and Renton isn’t necessary, and that PSE has inflated its need for electrical capacity to benefit outside interests in places like Canada.
According to USE’s independent technical analysis, PSE’s 2014 forecast was better at improving visibility for where its service area is growing than its 2013 forecast. The growing peak load is reported as 2.4 percent each year from 2014 to 2024.
“PSE’s result forecast shows the Eastside area growing at a higher level than at the county and system level, and these growth rates are based on the data it received,” according to the USE report. “Although the new 2014 forecast resulted in an 11 (megawatt) decrease in the Eastside area’s 2017/18 winter forecast, the reduced loading still resulted in several overloaded transmission elements in winter 2017/2018, which drive the project need.”
USE also reports as accurate PSE’s determination 63,200 customers are at risk of losing power by winter 2019-20, with outages possible as soon as summer 2018 due to potentially necessary load shedding — intentional outages due to corrective action plans used to prevent transmission overloads and other network impacts. The report states reducing load growth from 2.4 percent to 1.5 percent per year from winter 2013-14 to winter 2017-18 still resulted in overload projections.
The USE ITA states the risk of load shedding in 2017-18 from potentially poor weather “suggests it is reasonable to maintain the schedule for the existing project in-service date.”
The Bellevue City Council will received a detailed report of USE’s findings during its next meeting on Monday, May 4, at city hall.
