Utility group PacifiCorp is about to open a gusher of opportunity for wind, solar and energy storage developers in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain regions.
Last year PacifiCorp finalized a landmark integrated resource plan (IRP) that for the first time envisions it relying on large amounts of wind farms and solar backed by energy storage to meet its long-range energy needs.
Now the utility, part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, is preparing a solicitation for projects to meet that plan’s needs through 2024, taking a concrete step toward its vision.
PacifiCorp’s new all-source request for proposals “is a big deal,” said Spencer Gray, executive director of the Northwest & Intermountain Power Producers Coalition, a trade group with members including EDF Renewable Energy, Invenergy, Constellation Exelon, Shell Energy North America and others.
Through its two utility subsidiaries, Pacific Power and Rocky Mountain Power, PacifiCorp claims to be the largest grid operator in the Western U.S., serving 1.9 million customers in six states. PacifiCorp’s utilities have long relied on federally operated hydropower or utility-owned fossil-fueled generation for their electricity.
While many details still need to be worked out before the request for proposal’s anticipated opening in July, “from our perspective, this is a major shift in the region,” Gray said in a Friday interview.
For renewables developers, several things stand out about PacifiCorp’s upcoming solicitation. First and most obviously, “it’s just so large,” Gray said. PacifiCorp’s IRP preferred portfolio includes 1,823 megawatts of new solar resources co-located with 595 megawatts of new battery energy storage system capacity, and 1,920 megawatts of new wind resources — all by the end of 2023.
Recent Comments