The Pacific Northwest, having added electrical generating capacity rapidly when power prices skyrocketed in 2000 and 2001, has a surplus of supply today, and over the next five years should focus on conservation as it seeks to develop future resources, the Northwest Power Planning Council says.


At the same time, the region should undertake commercial wind-power development on a moderate scale at geographically diverse points to resolve uncertainties associated with that resource and to prepare for its eventual large-scale development, the council says.


Still, it says, by 2010 the region should have secured sites and permits to start building new coal-fired generating plantsand shortly thereafter should build yet more wind generation, says the Portland-based council, charged by Congress with planning to meet power needs in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.


The council will take public comment on a draft version of its fifth 20-year regional power plan at public hearings at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 16 at the Coeur dAlene Resort, in Coeur dAlene, and at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 17 at the Red Lion Hotel at the Park, in Spokane.


Though the councils plan is of interest to investor-owned utilities such as Avista Corp., Spokanes largest electrical utility, it would have little effect on Avista because the company now is energy self-sufficient, spokesman Hugh Imhof says. The plan does, however, come into effect when the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which markets power generated at the regions federal dams to electrical cooperatives such as Spokanes Inland Power & Light Co., decides what types of electrical resources it will acquire. Under the federal legislation that created the council, BPA must acquire resources in the priority order the council sets in its regional power plan, says council spokesman John Harrison.


While the council makes supply and demand projections in its plan, the Northwest saw energy markets swing wildly earlier this decade. When drought slashed hydropower generation in the Northwest by 4,000 average megawatts in the fall of 2000 through the spring of 2001, and Enron traders manipulated energy markets in the Western U.S., those markets tightened, and electricity prices shot up.


As a result, many users, including businesses, closed or curtailed operationsand 20 percent of the Northwests then-average electricity demand of 24,000 megawatts evaporated, Harrison says. Today, average demand has rebuilt to only 21,000 megawatts.


The council says the Northwest currently has an average surplus of 1,000 megawatts of firm energy, and in the near term the most economical way to obtain new resources is through conservation. The council estimates such a focus could curb demand, and ease the need for added supply, by 700 megawatts over the next five years.


In addition to the coal-fired plants that the region should be ready to build in 2010 and the wind generation it should add not long thereafter, later in the 20-year period some additional gas-fired generation could be needed, the council says.


Still, in some areas of the region supply isnt plentiful. There are utilities in the region with near-term resource needs that cannot be met with conservation alone, the council says.


Also, much of the regions new supply has been developed by independent power producers, rather than utilities. Power planners assume that electricity from the independent producers new plants would be available for sale to Northwest utilities, but thats a difficult assumption to make. We cant be sure of that, Harrison says. The independent producers, he says, could sell their power directly to users in California or elsewhere outside the Northwest, making their generating capacity unavailable to Northwest utilities.


Meanwhile, the development of additional wind-power generation hinges on other significant issues, Harrison says. Sometimes, the wind doesnt blow. Wind power needs to be backed up with a resource thats flexible.


Hydropower is a good option for backing up wind power, although the hydropower systems ability to do that, in turn, will depend on construction of coal-fired or other types of plants to meet base load, or average demand for power.


Finally, the council notes, the Northwests power transmission system needs to be upgraded, and Harrison says thats especially true if coal-fired plants are built, because they likely would be built in Montana, near the regions largest coal supplies.


As it happens, the regional transmission systems greatest deficiencies, he says, are in moving power between east and westfrom places like Montana to the populous Interstate 5 corridor.