Grand Coulee Dam, the largest electricity producer in the United States, last year generated about half as much power as it did in 2012, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Power production in the Northwest and across the West fell to a 22-year low in 2022–2023, largely because of a years-long drought.
Making matters worse, the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency that sells electricity from Columbia River dams and operates a high-voltage transmission system, has been exceedingly slow to connect new sources of power—wind and solar—to the grid. An investigation this year by ProPublica and Oregon Public Broadcasting found that of 469 large renewable projects that applied to connect to Bonneville’s system since 2015, one was approved. Bonneville has said it is working to speed up the process. ProPublica also found that Oregon and Washington—while promising to eliminate fossil fuels from the grid—trailed most states in connecting large solar and wind projects.
“It takes too long to build new transmission,” said Lauren McCloy, utility and regulatory director of the NW Energy Coalition, an alliance of environmental groups, local utilities and local government agencies. “But we are all working on it.”
McCloy said that the entire Pacific Northwest is trying “to focus on how we can meet our clean energy goals and keep the lights on.” She added that in all the meetings she has attended in recent years, “I hen’t heard anyone in this region point to the [Centralia] coal plant as a solution to this challenge.”
Washington state codified its intention to move away from fossil fuels in 2019. The law mandates the closure this year of all coal-fired plants. It also requires carbon-neutral power production by 2030 and an electricity supply system that is free of greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. Mushrooming power demands of data centers, combined with halting integration of wind and solar into the grid, he raised questions about the state’s ability to enforce its law.
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.