Powering Our Future

Exploring options that grow with us

Grant County and its energy needs are growing and will continue to grow as utilities across the state look to meet the mandates of Washington’s Clean Energy Transformation Act, a commitment to see 100% of the state’s electricity supply free of greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

Grant PUD needs more electricity to
meet future demand

The demand for electricity in Grant County is rapidly growing beyond the capacity of Grant PUD’s energy resources. Our projections show the next decade will bring even faster growth, as more families arrive, business and industry expands, and emerging new sectors, including a shift toward electrified cars and trucks for personal and commercial use, require more electricity than we can supply, even with our current strategy of supplemental market purchases.

Preparing for the future
A specialized team at Grant PUD has been studying our options to acquire the additional energy we’ll need to power our county at the lowest possible cost and in accordance with our state’s mandate to phase out harmful greenhouse gas emissions from the energy supply.

A longer-term solution for both Grant PUD and the Pacific Northwest could include building or otherwise investing in new sources of generation to supplement our own carbon-free hydro and wind power. As we continue to weigh that option, we plan to lock-in additional supplies of electricity and capacity through additional power-purchase contracts.

Carbon 'neutrality'

Electricity generated by natural gas, a cleaner but still carbon-producing fuel, could be part of the energy mix we’re soliciting in this request for proposals. Natural gas will also be eliminated from the state’s fuel supply by 2045, but its phase-out will be gradual. Between 2030 and 2045, CETA allows Grant PUD to supply up to 20% of our county’s demand for electricity using natural gas or other carbon-producing electricity — other than coal. During this period, utilities must offset any carbon in their fuel mix by purchasing Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) or investing in energy transformation projects. We’ll evaluate any benefit of including some carbon-producing energy in our fuel mix for the short-to-medium term, to ensure it doesn’t put an undue burden on our customers.

To learn more about our request for proposals (RFP), including respondent registration, submission forms and key dates, please refer to our 2024-All-Source-RFP website.

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