PSE seeks bids for new energy resources

Puget Sound Energy has issued a request for proposals (RFP) for new energy and capacity to meet customers’ long-range electricity needs. The 2021 All-Source RFP seeks bids from qualified parties to supply up to 1,669 gigawatt hours (GWh) of Clean Energy Transformation Act (“CETA”) eligible resources and up to 1,506 MW of capacity resources to Puget Sound Energy.

This is PSE’s first All-Source RFP issued since the passage of CETA, which sets statewide policy goals for the elimination of coal-fired resources by December 31, 2025, 80 percent carbon free generation and overall carbon neutral electricity by 2030, and 100 percent carbon free electricity by 2045.

PSE will consider any electric resource or energy storage resource that can meet all or part of the Company’s resource needs, consistent with the requirements described in the RFP.

“The region is growing, and it’s important that we acquire resources that will meet those demands and ensure we keep the lights on and homes heated on the coldest days of the year,” said Ron Roberts, PSE’s senior vice president of energy supply. “As we continue to reduce carbon emissions and further expand our renewable energy supplies, our RFP emphasizes bids for fairly-priced new resources that will protect the environment as well as our customers’ pocketbooks.”

In January 2021, PSE set its aspirational “Beyond Net Zero Carbon” energy company goal. Through this initiative, PSE targets reduction of its own carbon emissions to net zero and goes beyond by helping other sectors to enable carbon reduction across the state of Washington.

“The new resources and technologies we could see from this process are exciting, because they would provide both environmental and reliability benefits,” added Roberts. “PSE has a strong preference for renewable resources, and we are hoping to find that combination of renewable resources that will prove to be a sustainable, reliable and low-cost way to meet the needs of our customers identified in the RFP.”

PSE filed its All-Source RFP with the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission in April and after a public comment period and open meeting the commission approved the RFP on June 14. Proposals are due to PSE by Sept. 1, 2021.

PSE also plans to file a draft targeted Distributed Energy Resources (DER) RFP in November 2021. PSE anticipates that the types and amounts of resources to be solicited in the targeted DER RFP will generally be consistent with the demand response, distributed solar energy resource, and distributed battery resource additions identified in the Electric Preferred Portfolio presented in the 2021 Integrated Resource Plan for the period 2022 to 2025.

More information about PSE’s RFPs is available at www.pse.com/rfp.