Commission recap, 3/25/2025 -- Growth limits placed on data centers. More...

(Editor’s note: This meeting took place at the Hydro Office Building, near Wanapum Dam and was not recorded.)

Grant PUD’s data center customers have been rapidly growing their power loads over the past year and are communicating their intentions to continue growth at an accelerated pace.  

This rate of growth could soon increase the risk of outages and voltage instability on the local power grid, Grant PUD staff told commissioners during their meeting on Tuesday. To address the potential reliability risk, the utility plans to impose load-growth limits for data centers. Staff members will communicate to each data center customer how many more megawatts they have left to grow before they reach their assigned limit.  

 Load-growth limits could extend to other industrial-rate customers signaling growth at a rate that puts a risk to grid safety and reliability. They will not apply to Grant PUD’s commercial, agricultural and residential customers. 

 The limits will be raised when ongoing projects to upgrade substations and increase transmission capacity allow Grant PUD’s electric system to safely handle the increased volume of energy demand.  

 Load-growth limits are not unique to Grant County. Utilities across the United States are grappling with the same concerns as power-intensive artificial intelligence services housed in data centers are placing increased pressure on power systems that are close to capacity. 

See the full Large Power Solutions Q1 update on pages 56-67 of the presentation materials.

Power-purchase contract with solar company proposed

Grant PUD staff proposed to commissioners Tuesday a 20-year power-purchase contract for energy generated from a planned 120-megawatt solar project in Grant County.

Grant’s Integrated Resource Plan calls for the utility to acquire up to 300 megawatts of solar energy by 2027 to help cover the county’s anticipated energy demand, which is growing beyond the capacity of its Columbia River dams, Priest Rapids and Wanapum.

The solar project is slated for the Rocky Ford area of Grant County, east of Highway 17 and northwest of Grant County International Airport. The contract, with Quincy Solar LLC, is expected to begin in October 2027 at a projected price range of $70-$72 per megawatt hour. Grant PUD would receive 100% of the project’s output, Rich Flanigan, Grant PUD’s chief commercial officer, told commissioners.

The Quincy Solar project was one of 82 proposals received in response to an all source, capacity request for proposal issued by Grant PUD in 2024. Staff narrowed the field to six proposals that included Quincy Solar and Goose Prairie Solar, near Yakima. Grant PUD has already entered into a contract with Goose Prairie for up to 80 megawatts of power. Both these solar projects would count toward the 300-megawatt target for contracted solar power.

Commissioners are expected to vote on the proposal at their April 8 meeting. For more information, see pages 32-45 of the presentation materials and pages 285-348 in the commission packet.

Commissioners also:

--Learned about the Powering Our Future Campaign underway to explain the need for continued investment in the power and fiber systems in Grant County. Senior Manager of External Affairs and Communications Chuck Allen said the campaign is focused on helping Grant PUD’s widely dispersed workforce keep up with key ongoing projects and customers and other external stakeholders have a better understanding of how those projects are connected and necessary to provide affordable service for present and future generations of customers. To learn more, see Grant PUD Energy - Powering Our Future. See the full report on pages 1-14 of the presentation materials.  

-- Heard that Grant PUD’s Customer Strategist team has spent the first few months of 2025 focused on educating Grant PUD’s workforce on the importance of enhancing the customer experience as they perform their work. The team has a goal of having all of Grant PUD’s workforce receive some level of customer-experience training. So far, 116 Grant PUD staff members have had the training. The goal of this training is to reframe the way employees think about customers, both internally and externally, and highlight the importance of delivering a meaningful customer experience. See the full report on pages 15-30 of the presentation materials. 

--Heard from Senior Manager of Customer Solutions Cary West that:

• More than 85% of calls to Grant PUD Customer Service since November 2024 were on hold less than 5 minutes. And work is underway to reduce long wait times of 10 minutes or more to less than 1% of calls. Customer Service representatives fielded an average of 7,100 calls per month over the past two quarters. More than 60% of callers over the past quarter had their concern resolved that same call.
• An expanded discount program for income-qualifying customers has enrolled close to 300 over the past quarter, an increase of 37%.
• Under the current 2024-2025 biennium, Energy Services’ conservation efforts have already met the state-mandated target of 17,520-megawatt hour savings for the 2024-2025 biennium. To date, the actual savings have exceeded the target by 54%.
• See the full report on pages 46-53 of the presentation materials.

--Received an update from the new Product Development team on rates and pricing. See the full presentation on pages 68-79 of the presentation materials.

--Unanimously approved Resolution 9086, awarding a $3.8 million contract to Western Utility Telecom of Salem, Oregon, to furnish steel structures for the Quincy Transmission Expansion Project (QTEP). Western’s bid was the lowest of four bids submitted, coming in well below the estimate of $10 million by Grant PUD engineers, who attribute the differential to the volatility of the steel market. The structures will support new transmission lines, Columbia-Mountain View 230 kilovolt line (36 steel structures), the Mountain View Loop 1 (24 steel structures), and the western portion of the Mountain View-Monument Hill 230-kilovolt line (5 steel structures). The project, in part, will add a second energy source to the Mountain View Substation, in western Quincy, for fewer and shorter power outages. For more information, see pages 14-65 in the commission packet.

--Unanimously approved Motions 3514 and 3515 to award two new contracts. 1. A $600,000 contract agreement with HDR Engineering, Inc. and 2. a separate $600,000 contract with Stantec Consulting Services. Both contracts are to support the various engineering services needed by Grant PUD’s Energy Supply Management Research Department as it continues to explore additional energy generation resources. For more information, see pages 66-152 in the commission packet.