Avista is touting its plan to join the Western Energy Imbalance Market in 2022 as a way to help integrate renewable resources, a move that comes just a week after the company declared its goal to achieve 100% clean energy by 2045.
The announcement is significant because adding Avista, whose electric service area spans Washington and Idaho, further expands the geographic reach of EIM, a real-time market run by the California Independent System Operator to help members move their energy around the West.
While Avista's decision to join the Western EIM is not directly tied to its clean electricity goal, it will help support the effort, Avista spokeswoman Casey Fielder said Friday. "One of the drivers of our decision to join the Western EIM is the anticipated integration of additional renewable resources into our system in the future," she said.
If it were not joining the EIM, Avista could still integrate more solar and wind to the point where its hydro and thermal generators run out of flexible ramping capacity, the company's website said. "However, we will need to carry large amounts of flexible reserves, which is extremely inefficient and more costly than relying on the EIM to balance the variability of these resources," Avista said.
AVISTA MIX
The mix of generation Avista currently owns is made up of 49% hydro, 35% natural gas, 9.5% coal, 4.5% wind and 2% biomass, according to Avista's website.
The EIM is simply a cost-effective balancing mechanism and the smaller the balancing authority is, the greater its need for balancing, said Gary Ackerman, an industry consultant with Foothill Services Nevada. Southwest Power Pool recently announced its plan to launch a competing EIM, which will give entities an opportunity to look at an alternative to the Western EIM, Ackerman noted.
NEIGHBORS IN EIM
Avista's move to join the EIM is logical given that nearby entities like Puget Sound, Idaho Power, Pacificorp and Powerex are already part of the EIM and NorthWestern Energy in Montana is expected to join in 2021, said Morris Greenberg, an analyst with S&P Global Platts Analytics.
Joining the EIM will spread variability in load and renewables output over a wider geographic area and reduce dispatch costs, while also reducing the costs of integrating more renewables, Greenberg noted. "Avista also owns and operates several large hydro projects with storage on the Clark Fork River that can regulate output at Noxon Rapids and Cabinet Gorge, which will provide benefits to other EIM members," he said.
