Submitted by Puget Sound Energy
Through its early and aggressive acquisition of clean energy resources, Puget Sound Energy (PSE) will deliver more clean energy than originally forecasted in its Clean Energy Implementation Plan (CEIP), a course of action for clean electricity programs and investments to align with policies established by Washington’s Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA). PSE filed its CEIP update this week to provide a progress report and update to the 2021 CEIP.
PSE exceeded its clean energy goal in 2022 and it hopes to achieve similar success going forward, through a combination of utility scale renewables, new customer programs, distributed energy resources, and continued energy efficiency. Based on progress so far, PSE is currently on track to meet or exceed its obligation to achieve 80% clean or non-emitting energy by 2030 and 100% by 2045 by adding resources like the Clearwater Wind project in Montana, the Vantage Wind Energy facility, signing a long-term clean energy contract with Chelan PUD and expanding its Lower Snake River wind facility, with more resources expected to come online in the future.
Since the 2021 CEIP was filed, PSE has continued its work on energy equity and has developed a framework for energy justice – how to make the clean energy transition work for everyone. PSE has also thoughtfully engaged with its customers, particularly in highly impacted and vulnerable communities, resulting in recommendations for new and refined program designs, as well as critical definitions and approaches that will help ensure all customers benefit from the transition to clean energy.
In addition to acquiring utility-scale clean energy resources, PSE is also rapidly expanding its customer-side programs such as energy efficiency, demand response, and community and customer owned resources, like solar and storage.
By the end of 2025 customer demand response and customer-side solar and storage will contribute almost 200 MW annually, with the expectation it will grow from there.
In order to deliver these resources, PSE is modernizing its grid to better accommodate smaller scale, localized resources. PSE has established a Virtual Power Plant platform to enable, control and monitor distributed energy resources to ensure a stable energy supply during peak times.
