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Focus on renewable power

When Eugene Water & Electric Board customers say they want renewable power resources, the utility listens.

Ever since EWEB initiated an extensive energy resource planning process in the late
1980s, customers have communicated with their utility through citizen involvement committees, surveys and focus groups on the issue of energy resources. Their advice: Invest in conservation, then pursue renewable energy sources to help meet the growing demand of consumers and help the environment at the same time.

“In each process, citizen groups have concluded the same thing: conservation first, then renewables like wind and solar,” says EWEB’s Energy Resource Projects Manager Jim Maloney.

The utility’s elected board and staff responded in numerous ways. EWEB currently spends 5 percent of retail revenues on conservation – one of the highest commitments to conservation among utilities. It launched a solar hot water heating program in the early 1980s, which has provided financial assistance and expert advice to more than 1,000 customers who’ve installed systems. It also has provided incentives and advice for customers wishing to install solar electricity (photovoltaic) arrays.

In recent years, EWEB has embarked on a path to diversify its “portfolio” of energy sources, using $150 million in bonds approved by voters in 1992. Like most other public utilities, EWEB is heavily dependent on hydropower. Having a better mix of resources, particularly renewable energy, can help reduce the volatility of energy prices (such as during a drought) and help the environment at the same time.

In 1999, EWEB, PacifiCorp and the Bonneville Power Administration partnered to build a 69-turbine wind farm in southeastern Wyoming. For the first time, EWEB customers could choose to buy wind power to support the project and test local markets for renewable energy products.

As for the future, EWEB continues to look to invest in renewable energy projects that make financial sense or in promising research. As the result of the most recent update of the utility’s resource plan, EWEB commissioners in May 2006 dedicated 1 percent from electric rates to acquire new renewable energy sources.

Earlier this year, commissioners agreed to purchase wind power from the Klondike III wind farm being built in northeastern Oregon and may buy geothermal power from a project under consideration in Idaho. EWEB also purchases renewable energy from the Stateline wind farm on the Oregon-Washington border and the Tieton Hydroelectric Project in Central Washington.

In addition to supporting the Solar Monitoring Laboratory at the University of Oregon, EWEB also supported the Wind Research Cooperative at Oregon State University in the 1990s. The utility continues to study solar electric, ocean wave generation and other new technologies.

“EWEB’s energy resource plan is not a typical ‘least cost’ plan because the utility has multiple objectives guided by community preferences,” says Maloney. “The philosophy is to provide electricity for the Eugene community today and in the future at the lowest economic and environmental cost.”