We've published an initial public draft of the 2022 IRP, but the analysis process is ongoing. We have lots more questions we want to answer about Eugene's energy future, and we're sure you do, too. We want to hear from you! Please submit your questions and comments here.

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We're also taking our initial results on the road for more tailored presentations and dialogues. Does your group, organization or association want to schedule a presentation or meeting? To learn more, reach out to Aaron Orlowski at aaron.orlowski@eweb.org.

2022 Integrated Resource Plan initial public draft

Fact sheets:

Is Solar a Good Fit for Our Community’s Energy Needs?

Additional memos to the Board of Commissioners:

03/07/23 Board of Commissioners memo: IRP Sensitivity Analysis and Public Engagement Update

12/06/22 Board of Commissioners memo: IRP initial public draft and public engagement memo

11/15/22 Board of Commissioners memo: Reference Modeling Results in the 2022 IRP

08/02/22 Board of Commissioners memo: Resource Profiles & Performance

04/05/22 Board of Commissioners memo: EWEB’s Electricity Consumption Profile and Forecasting

02/01/22 Board of Commissioners memo: Principles and 2022 Roadmap

Why are Integrated Resource Plans important?

• Providing electricity requires huge, multimillion-dollar investments. Planning helps ensure that those investments make sense for our customers now and in the future.
• An Integrated Resource Plan provides transparency to customers. It shows where the community’s power comes from and gives the public a way to comment on the strategy.
• It’s critical to examine changes in technology, regulations, and customer preferences, and plan for how to best meet our customer needs under a variety of potential futures. 

How does the climate crisis affect resource planning for EWEB and the Northwest?

The climate crisis affects our resource planning in a variety of separate ways, some of which are very difficult to quantify. Hotter temperatures could affect EWEB’s electricity load as more people use air conditioning during the summer. Less precipitation might change reduce flows on the rivers that EWEB depends on for hydropower. Unfortunately, the exact nature of these changes will be hard to predict. But we can be fairly certain that increasing regulations on greenhouse gas emissions will affect energy markets. Even though EWEB gets hardly any energy from coal, the retirement of coal plants across the Northwest will shake up energy markets.

Are we considering the impacts of climate change in this IRP cycle?

We are. This IRP cycle will consider the impacts of climate change in terms of:

• Possible carbon legislation
• Fuel prices
• Levels of electrification (including EV adoption)
• Carbon impacts of various portfolio options
• Hydro variation

In addition, the Board recently amended the SD15 Climate Change Policy to support a low-carbon electric power portfolio that maintains, on a planning basis, over 90% of annual energy from carbon-free resources and targets over 95% of annual energy from carbon-free resources by 2030.

What criteria will be used to evaluate power resource options?

EWEB’s modeling process involves several steps. At the front end, we have instituted constraints that set the outer limits of a possible resource portfolio. One constraint, for instance, is that the portfolio must abide by EWEB’s Climate Change Policy, which targets 95% carbon-free resources by 2030. We then have the modeling software solve for the “least-cost” option, meaning it will generate the portfolio falls within the constraints and is also the most affordable.

While we may wish that there were a perfect resource – zero carbon, always reliable, abundant and affordable – that doesn’t exist. Every resource has tradeoffs. Some portfolios may be more affordable, but may carry more financial risk. Others may result in lower carbon emissions, but come at a higher cost. EWEB’s Board of Commissioners will have to weigh these tradeoffs as we chart our energy future.

Why don’t we just install more solar panels?

The IRP modeling process looks at many possible future energy resources that fit EWEB’s needs, including solar. The IRP will help EWEB’s Board of Commissioners evaluate the tradeoffs between different resources to find the ones that best meet our criteria. Solar is a carbon-free energy source with low environmental impacts. But it’s also an intermittent resource – we can’t always rely on it when we need it – and it produces less energy when EWEB’s needs are highest, which is during the dark winter months. Our initial modeling results picked wind over solar, most likely because wind generates much more energy than solar during times when EWEB has the greatest need – the cold, dark winter months.

Climate change is going to reduce snowpack and water resources. How do we know that hydropower will be a viable resource in the future?

It’s true that climate change is likely to reduce mountain snowpack and water availability on the river systems that EWEB depends on for hydropower. Climate change is expected to impact the timing of water runoff, with more in the spring and less in the summer. But despite the severity of the climate crisis, those changes will be gradual, allowing EWEB and the rest of the utilities in the Northwest significant time to analyze the changes and adapt. Hydropower remains one of the best sources of carbon-free energy available to EWEB and most likely will for years to come. Incorporating these runoff forecasts is something we might model in the next round of the IRP, in 2024. 

How will electric vehicles and other potential electrification be considered in the IRP?

We forecast that greater adoption of electric vehicles and electric space and water heating will cause our energy needs to increase. This is something we determined prior to starting the IRP. In 2020, EWEB conducted an electrification study to examine how the transition from fossil fuel-powered technologies to electric technologies would affect EWEB. The study looked closely at light-duty vehicles and space and water heating, and the results are being fed into the IRP.

In general, the electrification study found that the financial benefits of electrifying will prompt EWEB customers to transition to electric vehicles in the coming years. The financial benefits of electrifying with heat pump water heaters will also prompt customers to switch, but space heating electrification is less likely, based on the finances. Today, EWEB has enough generation and transmission capacity to handle the anticipated levels of electrification within the next few years, and these transitions will be slow at first. At the same time, EWEB will need to explore ways to encourage customers to charge their electric vehicles during off-peak times so that EWEB’s peak energy needs don’t substantially increase. 

Why are carbon emissions from EWEB’s electricity so much lower than emissions from the national electricity sector?

EWEB gets most of our electricity from the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency that sells energy at cost to utilities around the Northwest from 31 hydroelectric dams in the region. Hydropower is more abundant in the Northwest than any other region in the United States, and is carbon-free, resulting in significantly lower emissions. Some other utilities in Oregon don’t get as much of their electricity from BPA, and consequently have higher emissions from their energy sources.

Why are we conducting an analysis about the Leaburg Canal outside of the IRP?  

Ongoing problems with the structural integrity of the Leaburg Canal are requiring us to make certain decisions about it before we have concluded the relevant parts of the IRP process. Fortunately, we’re able to conduct a standalone analysis of the replacement value of the Leaburg energy generation resource.

The IRP analysis and Leaburg analysis also serve different purposes. The IRP looks at EWEB’s entire energy system to identify future gaps between resources and electricity loads under different conditions, and it evaluates the types of resources that could fill those gaps. The Leaburg analysis requires greater details about the costs and benefits of various options for remediating the canal – not just the project’s potential as an energy resource.

EWEB’s IRP is focused on the narrow question of how electric demand or load is best met over time with a mix of generation resources. Although the Leaburg project is certainly a generation project, it is also much more – a recreation asset, part of the region’s watershed and flood control systems, and a holder of community value in other ways. In order to correctly value the project, a broader and more inclusive analysis is needed than is possible through a generation-focused IRP process. On the other hand, findings and discussion about the Leaburg analysis could certainly be summarized and documented in the next IRP, as many stakeholders will look there for information about the EWEB plants.

How will customer input be used in the IRP?

We’ve published an initial public draft of the IRP, and we encourage you to check out our results. The energy resource portfolio in the draft is just one option – a benchmark – and we are continuing our analysis process from January to June 2023. During this time, we want to hear from customers. What questions do you have about our initial results that we can answer through further analysis?

We will do our best to incorporate as many questions as possible in our next phase of analysis. In June, we’ll publish our final, and then we’ll start the process again for the 2024 IRP.

Please submit your questions here.