The controversial Energize Eastside project added another chapter to its already tumultuous story last weekend, when a senior vice president of Puget Sound Energy sent a letter to Bellevue City Council tearing down a privately-commissioned study doubting the need for the project.
Or so the utility company may have thought.
Booga Gilbertson, senior vice president of operations for Puget Sound Energy (PSE), sent the letter detailing all the issues with the study, dismissing it as misinformed and inaccurate.
“The Lauckhart-Schiffman study concludes that the existing system will last until 2058,” she wrote. “The notion that a system built in the 1960s, for the Eastside’s current and future load demands, could last almost 100 years — until 2058 — is exceedingly unlikely. No electric utility system has that longevity.”
Energize Eastside is a power transmission project being overseen by five Eastside cities and helmed by Bellevue. Puget Sound Energy claims an 18-mile 230 kilovolt (kV) line to run from the Sammamish transformer station in Redmond to the Talbot Hill transformer station in Renton is the only real way to meet growing power needs on the Eastside.
Gilbertson decried the study for a variety of reasons, including a misunderstanding of transmission requirements to Canada during peak winter months, a failure to account for strict federal “stress” standards, an incorrect growth rate and “irrational conclusions.”
Private citizens fired back.
Citizens of Eastside Neighborhoods for Sensible Energy (CENSE) has been the primary opposition force against Energize Eastside. It was this group that commissioned the Lauckhart-Schiffman Load Flow Study that Gilbertson penned the letter against, and it was this group that reached out to Richard Lauckhart for a rebuttal.
According to this group, the proposed 18-mile 230 kV line through five Eastside cities (Kirkland, Redmond, Bellevue, Newcastle and Renton) would be an eyesore solution to the problem of transmission in the area — and even that problem is up for debate, CENSE claims.
“There are three main areas of disagreement,” Lauckhart wrote in a rebuttal letter to Bellevue City Council. “1. We disagree that PSE is required to support the export of 1,500 [megawatts] to Canada. 2. We disagree with the characterization of the project as upgrading the ‘backbone of the Eastside.’ 3. We disagree that other studies have sufficiently addressed the need for the project.”
The first point in both letters is one that concerns a transmission of power to Canada. Flows to and from Canada are set by a regional planning authority (ColumbiaGrid). A number of 1,500 megawatts (MW) is used by regional planners (whether they work for PSE, Tacoma Power or Seattle City Light) and must be factored into plans regardless if a certain section is actually used to transmit the power, Gilbertson said.
“The 1,500 MW of power flow to Canada is not set by PSE and does not flow through Bellevue on PSE’s systems,” she wrote. “The 1,500 MW is the load flow that is modeled for the entire region (Washington, parts of Montana and Canada).”
PSE claims that 1,500 MW number is for planning purposes. Gilbertson voiced an irritant for the utility company in that CENSE, and by proxy Lauckhart, is confusing planning with day-to-day operations.
“Planning requirements use specific modeling criteria — criteria that are based on projections,” she wrote. “In error, the Lauckhart-Schiffman study looks at load flows from an operations perspective.”
What this means is that PSE plans for emergency conditions whether or not those ever go into effect. Federal standards are strict, and the power grid must be able to transmit power even with several major components taken out. These contingencies (N-0, N-1, N-1-1 and N-2, with the numbers corresponding to the components no longer in service in each scenario) are a national security issue, and the details are not available to the public.
The Lauckhart-Schiffman study takes N-0 and N-1-1 into consideration, but not the other variants, PSE said. Lauckhart said this was inaccurate and he looked at all contingencies.
Lauckhart challenged PSE in his letter to show proof the region needs to transport those 1,500 MW to Canada, as well as to explain how the utility company arrived at it’s 2.4 percent growth rate. He also challenged them to cite standards for large-scale contingencies.
While both parties say they want what is best for the Eastside, the letters show clear miscommunication about the subject. It will be difficult for CENSE and PSE to negotiate unless they agree to speak the same language and agree on what the goals of the Energize Eastside project are.
