Power planning

PNGC Power manages power supply for its member cooperatives starting with planning months and years in advance, all the way to the moment of power delivery. Reliable load forecasts are a basic component for power planning and PNGC has a strong load forecast and power supply modeling groups. Conceptually, the work is quite straightforward; the challenge lies in identifying the relevant inputs.

PNGC Power continues to plan for the future through the Integrated Resource and Energy Efficiency Plan (IREEP) process. The goal is to find a balance between risk and cost in reliably meeting the electricity needs of our members. The planning environment for the IRP is our best estimate of what we believe the landscape will be for the coming 16-year period, 2012 to 2028.

The 20-year long-term contract that PNGC Power recently signed with BPA retains our share of the federal base system (FBS) power, but that will not meet the increasing power demands of members in the future. PNGC has the responsibility of acquiring additional kilowatt-hours to meet the load growth of all our member systems. We think the only way to meet future load growth requirements is to aggregate with others. This is a major benefit for PNGC Power’s member-owners.