2024 Regular Session

ByRepresentatives Barnard, Fitzgibbon, Duerr, Ramos, Slatter, Graham, Ormsby, Fey, Kloba, Gregerson, Paul, Wylie, Tharinger, Nance, and Hackney

Prefiled 12/07/23.Read first time 01/08/24.Referred to Committee on Environment & Energy.

AN ACT Relating to supporting the clean energy transition by providing a framework for financial assistance to utility-scale emission-reducing electricity generation or storage projects; adding a new section to chapter 43.330 RCW; and creating new sections.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that the state's energy strategy, which helps guide and plan for energy development in the state, balances goals of maintaining competitive energy prices that are fair and reasonable for customers and businesses and that support the state's economic success, increasing competitiveness by fostering a carbon free economy and jobs through businesses and workforce development, and meeting the state's greenhouse gas emission reduction obligations. Consistent with the goals of the state energy strategy, it is the intent of the legislature through this act to provide a framework of financial assistance for generation projects that create public benefit in the form of stable, dispatchable, utility-scale electric generation that helps to achieve the carbon and clean energy goals of the clean energy transformation act. It is further the intent of the legislature to provide $100,000,000 in funding to the innovative net zero grid transition financial assistance program created in this act to facilitate the development of the type of firm, reliable, dispatchable, low-carbon, utility-scale electric generation projects that will be needed in order to achieve the deadline of 2045 to transition to clean electricity as mandated by chapter 19.405 RCW.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. A new section is added to chapter 43.330 RCW to read as follows:

(1) Subject to the availability of amounts appropriated for this specific purpose, the department must administer the grid reliability innovation for decarbonization program outlined in this section.

(2)(a) Eligible projects under this section must be generation from a renewable resource or nonemitting electric generation, as those terms are defined in RCW 19.405.020, or a grid-scale storage project using new or emerging technologies whose practical applications are still largely unrealized at a commercial scale and that are consistent with and supportive of the goals and requirements of chapters 70A.65 and 19.405 RCW.

(b) Funds may be used for the predevelopment, design, engineering, permitting, environmental reviews, site preparation, or construction of projects that provide a public benefit through research, development, demonstration, or deployment of stable, dispatchable, utility-scale clean energy technologies that reduce harmful air emissions or increase energy independence for the state.

(c) Entities eligible for a grant under this section include: Joint operating agencies created pursuant to chapter 43.52 RCW; an investor-owned utility or consumer-owned utility, as those terms are defined in chapter 19.405 RCW; a federally recognized Indian tribe or instrumentality thereof; or a project developer of a commercial-scale generation or energy storage project.

(3) In selecting grant recipients that meet the minimum criteria in subsection (2) of this section, the department must prioritize project applications that would, in the judgment of the department, increase the likelihood of the project proponent catalyzing federal or private sources of funds in support of the completion of the project.

(4) By June 1, 2025, the department must develop and make available on its website guidelines for grant applications and the process by which the department will award funds. In developing this guidance, the department may assume future legislative appropriations for the purposes identified in this section in an amount totaling at least $100,000,000 in total prior to the start of the 2027-2029 fiscal biennium.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. This act may be known and cited as the grid reliability innovation for decarbonization (GRID) act.