Washington state has launched a drastic effort to accelerate construction of renewable energy projects in the wake of a report by Oregon Public Broadcasting and ProPublica documenting how the state ranked last in the nation for renewable energy growth.
The Washington State Department of Commerce, which works on state energy policy, is recruiting state employees to help deal with the federal Bonneville Power Administration’s backlog of renewable energy projects, but it remains unclear whether the agency will accept the offer. Bonneville, which owns 75% of the Northwest’s power grid, requires wind and solar developers who want to connect to the grid to sign contracts before they can break ground.
Meanwhile, four state agencies recommended that the Washington state Legislature create a new state agency that could incentivize power companies to upgrade their transmission lines, plan “microgrid” energy projects that don’t require connections to Bonneville’s power lines, and plan and pay for major new transmission lines. A public hearing on the bill creating such authority was held on January 21st.
The Departments of Commerce and Ecology, the Energy Facilities Site Assessment Council, and the Utilities and Transportation Committee also meet regularly to assess what’s holding up more than a dozen high-priority wind, solar and energy storage projects that could make a big difference.
Joe Nguyen, who recently resigned as state Commerce Secretary, said the urgency to complete the effort has increased since OPB and ProPublica showed last year that other states, including Iowa and Texas, were far ahead of Washington.
“We are forcing tough conversations that have never been had before,” Nguyen, a former state senator who helped pass the Washington law setting deadlines for decarbonization, said during a recent public forum. He spoke on a panel in January, shortly before retiring from the state Department of Commerce and taking a job as president of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.
“We’ll probably have to modify some policies, we’re going to modify some things, we’ll have to make strategic investments, but I think that’s a good thing,” Nguyen said at the forum. “I’m not daunted by the work.”
OPB and ProPublica say projects have a longer chance of being connected to the grid under Bonneville than anywhere else in the country.
Renewable energy advocates say federal agencies are considering how many new transmission lines and substations will be needed to carry the additional load, but have historically been slow to pay for such upgrades. The burden often falls on the builders of wind and solar projects.
Lawmakers in Washington and Oregon failed to account for this obstacle when they required power companies to phase out fossil fuels. Coupled with rapidly increasing demand for electricity from new data centers powering artificial intelligence, a study has now been released that predicts rolling blackouts will occur in the Pacific Northwest within the next five years.
Inspired by OPB and ProPublica’s reporting, Seattle nonprofit Clean and Prosperous released a report this month identifying energy projects that, if built by 2030, have the potential to generate enough electricity for 7 million homes and contribute $195 billion to the state’s economy. Kevin Tempest, director of research at Clean and Prosperous, said the fact that Washington state ranks 50th in the nation for green power growth was little understood until recent news coverage.
“I don’t think we realized how tough it was,” said Tempest, whose group advocates an “entrepreneurial approach” to phase out fossil fuels and boost economic growth. “I think that really opened our eyes and accelerated a lot of conversations.”
Separately, in Oregon, Gov. Tina Kotek recently signed two executive orders aimed at accelerating construction of energy projects. Kotek also said the coverage helped motivate policymakers.
Nguyen told OPB and ProPublica that their coverage made him realize that “people who talk about clean energy aren’t actually doing it.” But now, he said, “Washington State is trying really hard.”
“What we can control”
Most of the high-priority projects identified by the state and Clean & Prosperous are awaiting approval to connect to Bonneville’s substations and transmission lines for developers to move forward with construction.
The federal agency’s review process has historically been slow, often leaving a single energy developer with the responsibility of investing tens of millions of dollars in retrofits or waiting for another developer to pick up some of the cost. In addition, state officials in Oregon and Washington must approve sites for new power lines and wind and solar farms, a process that presents its own bottlenecks.
“There are countless reasons why a project might not move forward,” Tempest said. “Each case is different.”
But across all projects, Bonneville is a “common feature of some of the new facilities that haven’t broken ground,” he said.
Bonneville spokesman Kevin Wingert said in an email that Bonneville has implemented several reforms over the past year to enable faster connections to the power grid. For example, the agency has begun examining groups of projects together based on readiness, with the first examination expected to take place at the end of this month.
Wingert said the agency has identified 7 gigawatts worth of projects, roughly the capacity of Washington’s largest power plant, the Grand Coulee Hydroelectric Dam, and is on pace to bring them online within five years. More than twice that number is expected to be connected and powered by 2035.
Casey Sixkiller, director of the Washington State Department of Environment, said the state is focused on improving its power grid in the short term, something that can be done without Bonneville.
He said the Washington government intends to help projects connect to a portion of the roughly 25% of the region’s power grid operated by investor-owned utilities.
“I think the point is that we in Washington are trying to figure out what else is in our control that should be prioritized and moved forward while we wait on BPA, which has been delayed for years,” Sixkiller said.
Curt Beckett, chairman of the Energy Facilities Site Evaluation Council in Washington, which issues site permits for energy projects, said localized improvements made outside of Bonneville’s power grid are cheaper and have tangible, immediate results. It also has the benefit of “buying time for larger, more difficult upgrades that Bonneville will be responsible for.”
Bonneville plans to spend $5 billion to improve about two dozen power lines and substations, but many of those projects are years away and have no set deadlines.
What Washington can control in the short term is streamlining state permitting for projects that either have Bonneville approval or don’t require approval.
This need was highlighted by the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that President Donald Trump passed last year. The bill would phase out key federal energy tax credits and set a July 4 deadline for breaking ground on projects. This credit covers 50% of the construction costs of most solar and wind farms.
In theory, more than 200 wind, solar and battery storage projects could meet the deadline “if the development process improves,” Clean and Prosperous concluded in its report. The group said this refers to both the city of Bonneville and the state’s role.
Sixkiller said Washington leaders are prioritizing a smaller list of 19 proposed projects that they believe have the best chance of meeting the July deadline. In some cases, the developer may already have a connectivity agreement with Bonneville. In the second, the project connects to a power line operated by a utility company.
offer of assistance
In addition to the actions taken by state officials, Washington state lawmakers are considering legislation that would ease the state’s reliance on Bonneville to build new power lines. That would come in the form of the State Transmission Authority, a new state agency responsible for planning transmission routes, acquiring land, and working with developers to build new lines. Eventually, the project could also be paid for. Lawmakers in Washington are seeking a report on the financing tools the new transmission authority would need, including the ability to issue bonds.
The bill has support from environmental groups, labor unions and energy developers. But lobbyists for large industrial energy consumers and Bonneville’s utility customers opposed the bill, saying they supported the intent to expand the grid but wanted the state to focus on loosening permitting requirements to help utilities solve problems.
For now, state officials told OPB and ProPublica they are working to strengthen Bonneville’s ability to perform the work needed on the region’s power grid.
Beckett said he hopes the state can help the city of Bonneville meet the agency’s self-imposed goal of reducing project wait times from an average of 15 years to five or six years.
The agencies are offering Bonneville some of their staff to help analysts complete grid connection studies, which Washington officials said makes sense because the state is often already considering the same projects, which are awaiting connection approval from federal agencies.
Bonneville hasn’t said yes yet. Wingert said the Bonneville interconnection study has “many technical and regulatory requirements” that would make it “inappropriate or impracticable” for the state to conduct it on BPA’s behalf.
But the agency said it is willing to work with the state to speed up the project at some point.
“In the future, there may be opportunities to align efficiencies between national policies and BPA interconnection processes,” Wingert said.
Nguyen said technical requirements should not prevent the City of Bonneville from accepting state assistance in project scrutiny and grid impact analysis, and state staff can assist with non-technical parts of the report if needed.
“If you would like to bring your own lunch so that our analysts can work more quickly, we will do so,” he said. “That’s the level of seriousness I take about building transmissions.”
