Washington Fuel Mix Disclosure System
A Brief Overview
A statute enacted in 2000 (RCW 19.29a) requires utilities that serve retail electricity customers in Washington to report their generation fuel mix semi-annually to customers. Pursuant to this statute, the Washington State University Cooperative Extension Energy Program, under contract to the Energy Policy Division, collects “claims” on specific generating units that utilities own or have under contract. The Energy Program also calculates the “net system mix”, consisting of all resources in the U.S. portion of the Northwest Power Pool not claimed by Washington utilities or the Bonneville Power Administration. The net system mix is applied to power purchases for which no fuel source is specified, for example, wholesale purchases at a market hub.
In order to verify that claims made by utilities do not exceed actual output by specific generators, the Energy Program also collects annual production and fuel use data on generating units located in the Northwest Power Pool. In addition, the Energy Program collects resource mix information from the Bonneville Power Administration and estimates of net exports of power from the Northwest Power Pool to other regions.
The Washington Fuel Mix Disclosure database system consists of a database application and a web application. Energy staff imports 12 months of electricity generating unit production data, including fuel type, from the federal Energy Information Administration into its Access database. The database currently limits units to those located in the US portion of the NW Power Pool. The web application enables the sixty-plus utilities in WA to file “claims” on specific generating units by fuel type. The database calculates a “Utility Fuel Mix” for each Washington utility as a weighted average of retail sales from declared resources and retail sales from unspecified resources or market purchases (reported as the fuel mix of the net system mix of the NW Power Pool).
The database imports relevant data from multiple sources; imports data from the web application; is used by utilities to report their claims on declared resources; provides a user interface for manually entering and editing data; calculates net system mix for the NW Power Pool (net system mix equals gross generation in NW Power Pool less utility claims; with adjustments for regional imports and exports).
The web application collects resource specific claim information from utilities as well as their retail sales information.
Washington just completed its first year of fuel mix disclosure. There are shortcomings of the system that preclude it from being entirely accurate. For example, a utility that owns environmentally preferred generators may claim 100% of the output from those generators regardless of whether the electricity is generated at a period of local consumption by the utility’s retail customers or whether the output is sold immediately into the market place. However, as more western states implement fuel mix disclosure the methodology will grow in accuracy. Additionally, if more retail electricity providers determine there is value in serving their customers with environmentally preferred resources then they will purchase power from specific generators or the tags that value the environmental attributes of those clean generators and accuracy of the methodology will increase.
Contacts: Michael Bradley, WSU bradleym@energy.wsu.edu, (360) 956-2099
Liz Klumpp, OTED, elizabethk@ep.cted.wa.gov, (360) 956-2071