Energy companies propose $38 million Pullman project

Pullman and Albion could be among 15 communities in the Northwest that will teach the nation how to be “smarter” with how power is delivered to homes.

A group of energy companies, led by Avista, is hoping a $38 million project will make energy delivery to Pullman customers more efficient.

The project is part of a $178 million five-state project by 12 energy companies that is being spearheaded by Battelle, the company that operates the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories in Richland.

Battelle has applied to the U.S. Department of Energy for a stimulus grant that will cover about half of the project’s cost. An award announcement is expected in December.

“It could be quite a big deal if we get the money,” said Hugh Imhoff, spokesperson for Avista Utilities.

“But if we do, we’re looking at making Pullman the first ‘smart city’ in the region.”

Energy companies in Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming and Montana will use actual energy users as guinea pigs for energy-saving technologies.

The project is unique in its scope and is designed to lower emissions, reduce energy costs and increase power grid reliability, all while tracking the consumption patterns of energy consumers.

Customers would have in-house energy meters and energy-gauging appliances that would show them how their power bill is affected when appliances are switched on.

“If a customer turns on their drier, they would get a read-out of how much power they’re using and how much they’re paying for it,” Imhoff explained.

Customers would pay less for using power that is not in peak consumption periods.

That data will show when regional power use is higher and if customers modify their power consumption based on that information.

“It will help us adjust to changes in demand and respond to fluctuations in the power supply,” said Imhoff.

Similar studies have shown such technologies work, said Ron Melton, an engineer with PNNL, but no one has tried to implement them over such a large territory.

In 2006, PNNL did a similar study on the Olympic Peninsula. That study showed consumer knowledge and energy-saving technologies used by power companies reduced wasted power, according to Melton.

“We saw customers shifted their energy use to times when there’s less stress on the grid if it saves them money,” he said.

While the Olympic Peninsula project involved a few hundred customers, the entire Battelle project will involve more than 60,000 metered energy customers that are served from systems totaling upwards of 112 megawatts of electricity.

Avista has partnered with Hewlett Packard, Itron, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Spirare and Washington State University to put together the Pullman/Albion piece of the project.

The proposed power project will also increase system redundancy, said Imhoff, which means outages such as those caused by blown transformers will affect smaller areas.

He added the system will also be set to compensate for the intermittent nature of wind power.

Washington energy companies are under a mandate from Initiative 937 to deliver 15 percent of their electricity from wind or solar sources by 2020. Voters approved the initiative in 2006.