Pacific Northwest is a Target for Resurgence in Hydroelectric Power

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). The Pacific Northwest (Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon) has utilized hydroelectric power for over a century. Growth in hydroelectric power was fairly steady in the region until the 1960’s when new power generation started moving towards thermal generation and power companies were no longer at the mercy of the weather. With the resurgence of calls for renewable energy, two technologies have stepped up to the plate, hydroelectric and wind.

The Pacific Northwest region currently has over 500 hydroelectric units producing more than 40,670 megawatts of power that is operational. Power generation developers are looking at increasing the current generation capacity by 17.5%, or 7,118 megawatts to a total of 47,778 megawatts. The new proposed generation includes technologies other than conventional methods like pumped-storage and tidal energy.

Click on the image at right to view a chart showing the breakdown of planned hydroelectric generation for the Pacific Northwest region

There are currently two pumped-storage projects, BC Hydro and Power Authority (BC Hydro) (Vancouver, British Columbia), 200MW Shawnigan Lake Pumped Storage Hydro in Southern British Columbia and Energy Recycling Company a subsidiary of Spaulding Consultants (Minneapolis, Minnesota) 1,000MW Klamath County Pumped-Storage Hydro.

There are over nine tidal energy projects for a total proposed capacity of over 1,500 megawatts. These include tidal plants being developed by subsidiaries of Oceana Energy Company (Washington, D.C.) in Alaska, Oregon and Washington, projects in Alaska by ORPC, LLC, a subsidiary of Ocean Renewable Power Company, LLC (Miami, Florida), and by two local utilities Tacoma Public Utilities (Tacoma, Washington) and Public Utility Division No. 1 of Snohomish County (Everett, Washington).

The proposed 4,400 megawatts is conventional hydroelectric generation. Many of the units will be rated at 25 megawatts or smaller, but BC Hydro has some larger plants that were originally designed for additional units and are now being studied to install these units like at Mica Creek and Revelstoke Dams were additional 450-500MW units are to be installed plus the controversial 900MW Site “C”.

For more information on future business trends and project spending in the Power Industry, check out Industrial Info’s 2006 Power Industry Forecast.

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