Inland Power & Light Co., the Spokane-based electric cooperative that obtains all of its power from the Bonneville Power Administration, says its exploring the possibility of participating in a non-federal power pool to meet some of its future energy needs.


CEO Kris Mikkelsen says Inland Power is looking at joining with one or the other of two utility groups that are forming to seek economies of scale by buying power jointly on the open market, and expects to make a decision on how to proceed later this year.


Theyre both in various stages of what the governance model should be, and the outcome of those talks will play a role in Inland Powers decision, she says.


Participation in such a power pool is one of the possible strategies mentioned in a draft long-term integrated resource plan (IRP) that Inland Power completed recently. The plan includes a 20-year load forecast, and outlines the resources that will be used to serve those demands.


The co-op held a public meeting earlier this week to present the plan and take public comment on it. It expects its board to approve the plan as soon as next month, and must submit a copy of it to the Washington state Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development by Sept. 1.


Inland Power has more than 37,000 customers, located largely in rural areas. Its service area stretches across 13 counties of Eastern Washington and North Idaho, and its customer base is 93 percent residential.


It is whats called a full requirements customer of the BPA, meaning that the BPA, which markets the power from the Northwests federal dams, provides all of the co-ops power requirements at cost-based rates. However, the draft IRP says, Inlands power supply portfolio will change and be impacted in the future by a host of market factors and legislative mandates.


The draft IRP projects Inland Power will have average load growth of about 2.5 percent a year over the next 20 years and says the co-ops base BPA allocation should be sufficient to meet all or most of its needs through 2012. After that, it says, the co-op will have the option of buying additional market-priced power from BPA under a two-tiered pricing structure BPA plans to implement, buying power from non-BPA sources, or a combination of the two, the IRP says.


BPA plans to set up the two-tiered system to help meet customers loads that exceed its own generating capability, meaning that it will go out into the open market and procure that power for them. BPA doesnt plan to implement the two-tiered pricing system until 2011, but Mikkelsen says it needs to know by the end of next year how much of that power Inland Power and other BPA customers are going to need.


Our gut feeling is that BPA probably wont be the cheapest provider, Mikkelsen says. Its not the same old world where BPA was this default provider.


Regardless of where additional power is purchased, You dont have a big laundry bag of choices on what types of power will be available for utilities in Washington, she says. At the end of the day, youve got wind or (natural) gas.


One of Inland Powers key considerations will be how to comply with an initiative passed by Washington voters two years ago that requires larger utilities in the state to obtain at least 15 percent of their power from certain renewable resources by 2020. The affected utilities must reach intermediate thresholds of 3 percent in 2012 and 9 percent in 2016.


Mikkelsen says Inland Power wont have a problem meeting the 2012 benchmark, but she foresees a real crunch in complying with the 2016 mandate.


She and Fred Rettunmund, a retired BPA senior executive who now is Inland Powers power supply and conservation manager, say the co-op will seek to counter rising energy-purchase costs and meet some of its renewable-energy requirements by intensifying conservation efforts.


The co-op already offers an array of conservation program options, such as energy-efficient appliance rebates and heat-pump incentives, but Rettunmund says, Well have to take a fresh look at how we market those and decide how to make better use of the most cost-effective programs.


Conservation is the No. 1 resource, Mikkelsen says, noting that Inland Power signaled its commitment to that part of its operation two months ago by merging its power-supply and conservation departments.