Work is underway to create Grant County PUD’s next, state-mandated Integrated Resource Plan, which describes how the utility will meet customers’ demand for electricity from 2027 to 2046, while maintaining reliable service in compliance with the state’s clean-energy requirements at the lowest electric rates possible.
Grant PUD analysts have collected the appropriate data and are now running the computer models to reveal the cost and feasibility of everything from new sources of electrical generation and energy storage to continued power-purchase agreements and financial impacts, Rich Flanigan, vice president of Energy Supply and Markets recently told PUD commissioners.
Staff will seek both commission and public comment on the eventual draft of the plan before it goes to a final vote of the commission, scheduled for Sept. 1, 2026.
The power produced by Washington state-based Grant PUD’s Columbia River dams, Priest Rapids and Wanapum, are no longer enough to fulfill customers’ needs, especially during times of peak demand. The utility has already signed three agreements for 460 megawatts of solar power and 260 MW of battery storage, which will be available late in 2027 and early 2028.
In the shorter term, purchases of electricity on the wholesale market and shorter-term power-purchase agreements, combined with existing hydropower and the planned-for solar, are forecast to be enough to meet customer demand, Flanigan said.
In the longer term, Grant PUD analysts continue to study additional solar power, battery storage, geothermal energy, pumped-storage hydropower, wind and various forms of natural gas, as well as a nuclear plant based on small, modular reactor technology.
Grant PUD Commissioners have adopted a rate-setting policy where residential, small commercial/general service, and agricultural customers receive Grant PUD’s hydropower generation, which is the utility’s lowest-cost resource. Large-power consuming customers will pay for higher-cost power generation.
