NW Power shortage averted

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Tuesday, December 12, 2000, 12:00 a.m. Pacific

Power shortage averted

by Seattle Times Staff

Power watchers and government officials said conservation and milder weather than expected are helping the Northwest avert a power shortage.

But they renewed their conservation call yesterday anyway, just in case.

"The next three months are the most difficult," said Gary Zarker, superintendent for Seattle City Light. "These are high-load months in which resources are limited."

Lack of rain and snow and power shortages in Northern California have exacerbated the winter-time shortages. Rain puts water in the rivers to generate electricity.

Regional, state and city officials braced through the weekend for a spike in power consumption they expected to accompany the drop in temperatures, and last week they urged power users big and small to cut back.

Some of those big users are public facilities, and costs are going through the roof as power prices rise.

Sewage treatment, for example, turns out to be a giant consumer of electricity. Yesterday, King County Executive Ron Sims asked the County Council for an emergency $10 million budget supplement to cover spiraling power costs, simply to keep the critical wastewater plant running.

Operating the county's sewage- treatment plant in Renton is now costing about $549,000 a day, not because the county is using more power but because it is priced higher, said Pam Bissonnette, director of the Department of Natural Resources.

Bissonnette told County Council members that just two weeks ago the county was paying 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour for power, but that price has recently shot up to as much as $5 per kilowatt hour - more than 100 times higher.

King County can cover such a supplemental budget request this year out of reserves but may have to consider a rate increase when it sets Metro wastewater charges in June. If power costs continue to climb, King County might have to consider a surcharge this year.

No one could supply hard data showing that recent energy-saving efforts have had an effect, but "if we didn't think conservation would make a difference we wouldn't ask," said Don Badley, operations manager at the Northwest Power Pool, which helps coordinate regional power operations.

At a news conference yesterday, Seattle Mayor Paul Schell, City Councilwoman Heidi Wills and others blasted power deregulation, which they say has driven the cost of power on the open market sky high. Prices for a megawatt have shot as high as $5,000 in recent days. They usually are around $30 to $50 a megawatt hour.

"Utilities have a responsibility to customers," Schell said. "And deregulation is bad for the customer."

He said he was asking President Clinton to direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to put a lid on the spiraling costs of power.

In a news conference in Olympia, Gov. Gary Locke renewed his plea for conservation efforts as well.

Ted Buehner, of the National Weather Service, said temperatures should warm up heading into the weekend, with rain possible on Thursday and through the weekend. Temperatures could be as warm as the mid-40s by Saturday.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/SeattleTimes.woa/wa/gotoArticle?zsection_id=268448406&text_only=0&slug=power12m&document_id=134253199

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), December 12, 2000


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