Energy Northwest: Focus is on customers, with an eye toward the future

We’ve seen the performance of our state’s nuclear power facility near Richland get better and better throughout the past eight years. In addition to remaining the best-cost option over any other electric resource in our region, Columbia Generating Station achieved annual generation records in 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016.

The more than 1,100 men and women of Energy Northwest are directly responsible for this superior performance – at the nuclear plant as well as at the agency’s top-performing wind project south of Kennewick and its hydro facilities throughout the state and Portland.

This performance reflects a culture shift that today has a singular focus on excellence – a change implemented by CEO Mark Reddemann, who took the reins of Energy Northwest in 2010. When he announced his retirement last fall, it caused me to reflect on the significant milestones achieved during his leadership.

In addition to generation records, we’ve seen a continuing reduction in power costs to help keep our electric bills the second lowest in the United States, second only to Louisiana. Smart, collaborative business practices with the Bonneville Power Administration, combined with other cost reductions, will save electric customers more than $2 billion between 2012 and 2024.

And 27 public utilities in Washington – all members of Energy Northwest – under Mark’s leadership became the center of a renewed customer-focused effort to further reduce costs through aggregated service and innovative energy initiatives by this joint action agency of Washington state.

Starting with safety – our highest priority – we’ve garnered multiple industrial safety records, such as most days worked without a lost time injury – 1,475 – which is more than four years. The Association of Washington Business honored Energy Northwest with its Better Workplace Award for safety in 2014. In addition, the agency received first-place safety awards from the Northwest Public Power Association in 2015 and 2017 and from the American Public Power Association in 2012, 2015 and 2016.

POWER magazine named Columbia a Top Plant in 2017 for pursuit of excellence and commitment to nuclear reliability, predictability, cost-effectiveness and safety.

As a result of strategic investment in upgrades and maintenance, Columbia now delivers approximately 60 more megawatts of carbon-free electricity to the regional power grid than it did in 2010. The increase alone is equivalent to the amount of electricity generated by a large wind farm.

In partnership with Bonneville and participating Northwest utilities, Energy Northwest successfully concluded demand response demonstrations in 2016 and 2017. Demand response uses control and communications technology to shut off, shift the use of, or reduce energy consumption of equipment during peak electrical use. The coordinated decrease or increase of many electric loads at once sustains overall efficiency and reliability in a power system and provides flexibility.

As a result, demand response can serve as a cost-effective alternative to building new power generation or transmission infrastructure, resulting in overall cost savings for Northwest customers. The Peak Load Management Alliance, a national community of experts and practitioners, recognized the project as one of the nation’s most creative and successful energy achievements of 2015 with its national Pacesetter Award for Innovation and Excellence.

These outstanding results were achieved while Energy Northwest continued to reduce costs and deliver tremendous savings to the region. Since fiscal year 2009 – through deliberate and careful planning – Mark and the agency’s team reduced Columbia’s cost of power from a two-year cycle average of 5.7 cents per kilowatt hour to 4.3 cents per kilowatt hour.

Things are different from where we were eight years ago. With Mark’s retirement in March, we won’t be looking to change course, but, rather, to maintain our momentum along the path Mark set us on eight years ago. He leaves behind 1,100 men and women whose pride in their work and excellence in performance will continue to reap economic and environmental benefits for all of us for many years to come.

This story was originally published April 1, 2018 at 4:04 PM with the headline "Energy Northwest: Focus is on customers, with an eye toward the future."