"Allocation of electricity" means, for the purposes of setting electricity rates, the costs and benefits associated with the resources used to provide electricity to an electric utility's retail electricity consumers that are located in this state.
"Alternative lowest reasonable cost and reasonably available portfolio" means, for purposes of calculating the incremental cost of compliance in RCW
19.405.060(3), the portfolio of investments the utility would have made and the expenses the utility would have incurred if not for the requirement to comply with RCW
19.405.040 and
19.405.050. The alternative lowest reasonable cost and reasonably available portfolio must include the social cost of greenhouse gases in the resource acquisition decision in accordance with RCW
19.280.030 (3)(a).
"Biomass energy" includes: Organic by-products of pulping and the wood manufacturing process; animal manure; solid organic fuels from wood; forest or field residues; untreated wooden demolition or construction debris; food waste and food processing residuals; liquors derived from algae; dedicated energy crops; and yard waste.
Biomass energy does not include:
• Wood pieces that have been treated with chemical preservatives such as creosote, pentachlorophenol, or copper-chrome-arsenic;
• Wood from old growth forests; or
• Municipal solid waste.
"Carbon dioxide equivalent" or "CO2e" means a metric measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse gases based upon their global warming potential.
"CEAP" means the clean energy action plan.
"CEIP" means the clean energy implementation plan.
"Coal-fired resource" means a facility that uses coal-fired generating units, or that uses units fired in whole or in part by coal as feedstock, to generate electricity. Coal-fired resource does not include:
• An electric generating facility that is included as part of a limited duration wholesale power purchase, not to exceed one month, made by an electric utility for delivery to retail electric customers that are located in this state for which the source of the power is not known at the time of entry into the transaction to procure the electricity; or
• An electric generating facility that is subject to an obligation to meet the standards contained in RCW
80.80.040 (3)(c).
"Commission" means the Washington utilities and transportation commission.
"Conservation and efficiency resources" means any reduction in electric power consumption that results from increases in the efficiency of energy use, production, transmission, or distribution.
"Cost-effective" means that a project or resource is forecast: (a) To be reliable and available within the time it is needed; and (b) to meet or reduce the electric power demand of the intended consumers at an estimated incremental system cost no greater than that of the least-cost similarly reliable and available alternative project or resource, or any combination thereof.
"Customer benefit indicator" means an attribute, either quantitative or qualitative, of resources or related distribution investments associated with customer benefits described in RCW
19.405.040(8).
"Demand response" means changes in electric usage by demand-side resources from their normal consumption patterns in response to changes in the price of electricity, or to incentive payments designed to induce lower electricity use, at times of high wholesale market prices or when system reliability is jeopardized. Demand response may include measures to increase or decrease electricity production on the customer's side of the meter in response to incentive payments.
"Distributed energy resource" means a nonemitting electric generation or renewable resource or program that reduces electric demand, manages the level or timing of electricity consumption, or provides storage, electric energy, capacity, or ancillary services to an electric utility and that is located on the distribution system, any subsystem of the distribution system, or behind the customer meter, including conservation and energy efficiency.
"Energy assistance" means a program undertaken by a utility to reduce the household energy burden of its customers.
• Energy assistance includes, but is not limited to, weatherization, conservation and efficiency services, and monetary assistance, such as a grant program or discounts for lower income households, intended to lower a household's energy burden.
• Energy assistance may include direct customer ownership in distributed energy resources or other strategies if such strategies achieve a reduction in energy burden for the customer above other available conservation and demand-side measures.
"Energy assistance need" means the amount of assistance necessary to achieve an energy burden equal to six percent for utility customers.
"Energy burden" means the share of annual household income used to pay annual home energy bills.
"Equitable distribution" means a fair and just, but not necessarily equal, allocation of benefits and burdens from the utility's transition to clean energy. Equitable distribution is based on disparities in current conditions. Current conditions are informed by, among other things, the assessment described in RCW
19.280.030 (1)(k) from the most recent integrated resource plan.
"Fossil fuel" means natural gas, petroleum, coal, or any form of solid, liquid, or gaseous fuel derived from such a material.
"Greenhouse gas" includes carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and any other gas or gases designated by the department of ecology by rule under RCW
70A.45.010.
"Highly impacted community" means a community designated by the department of health based on the cumulative impact analysis required by RCW
19.405.140 or a community located in census tracts that are fully or partially on "Indian country," as defined in 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1151.
"Implementation period" means the four years after the filing of each clean energy implementation plan through 2045. The first implementation period will begin January 1, 2022, and will end December 31, 2025, and the second implementation period will begin on January 1, 2026, and will end on December 31, 2029.
"Integrated resource plan" or "IRP" means an analysis describing the mix of generating resources, conservation, methods, technologies, and resources to integrate renewable resources and, where applicable, address overgeneration events, and efficiency resources that will meet current and projected needs at the lowest reasonable cost to the utility and its ratepayers and that complies with the requirements specified in RCW
19.280.030(1).
"Lowest reasonable cost" means the lowest cost mix of generating resources and conservation and efficiency resources determined through a detailed and consistent analysis of a wide range of commercially available resources. At a minimum, this analysis must consider resource cost, market-volatility risks, demand-side resource uncertainties, resource dispatchability, resource effect on system operation, the risks imposed on the utility and its customers, public policies regarding resource preference adopted by Washington or the federal government, and the cost of risks associated with environmental effects, including emissions of carbon dioxide. The analysis of the lowest reasonable cost must describe the utility's combination of planned resources and related delivery system infrastructure and show consistency with chapters
19.280, 19.285, and
19.405 RCW.
"Natural gas" means naturally occurring mixtures of hydrocarbon gases and vapors consisting principally of methane, whether in gaseous or liquid form, including methane clathrate. Natural gas does not include renewable natural gas or the portion of renewable natural gas when blended into other fuels.
"Nonemitting electric generation" means electricity from a generating facility or a resource that provides electric energy, capacity, or ancillary services to an electric utility and that does not emit greenhouse gases as a by-product of energy generation. Nonemitting electric generation does not include renewable resources.
"Nonpower attributes" means all environmentally related characteristics, exclusive of energy, capacity reliability, and other electrical power service attributes, that are associated with the generation of electricity including, but not limited to, the facility's fuel type, geographic location, vintage, qualification as a renewable resource, and avoided emissions of pollutants to the air, soil, or water, and avoided emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Nonpower attributes does not include any aspects, claims, characteristics, and benefits associated with the on-site capture and destruction of methane or other greenhouse gases at a facility through a digester system, landfill gas collection system, or other mechanism, which may be separately marketable as greenhouse gas emission reduction credits, offsets, or similar tradable commodities. However, these separate avoided emissions may not result in or otherwise have the effect of attributing greenhouse gas emissions to the electricity.
"Renewable energy credit" or "REC" means a tradable certificate of proof of one megawatt-hour of a renewable resource. The certificate includes all of the nonpower attributes associated with that one megawatt-hour of electricity and the certificate is verified by a renewable energy credit tracking system selected by the department of commerce.
"Renewable resource" means water; wind; solar energy; geothermal energy; renewable natural gas; renewable hydrogen; wave, ocean, or tidal power; biodiesel fuel that is not derived from crops raised on land cleared from old growth or first growth forests; or biomass energy.
"Resource" includes, but is not limited to, generation, conservation, distributed generation, demand response, efficiency, and storage.
"Resource need" means any current or projected deficit to reliably meet electricity demands created by changes in demand, changes to system resources, or their operation to comply with state or federal requirements. Such demands or requirements may include, but are not limited to, capacity and associated energy, capacity needed to meet peak demand in any season, fossil-fuel generation retirements, equitable distribution of benefits or reduction of burdens, cost-effective conservation and efficiency resources, demand response, and renewable and nonemitting resources.
"Retail electric load" means the amount of megawatt-hours of electricity delivered in a given calendar year by an electric utility to its Washington retail electric customers. "Retail electric load" does not include:
(a) Megawatt-hours delivered from qualifying facilities under the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, P.L. 95-617, in operation prior to May 7, 2019, provided that no entity other than the electric utility can make a claim on delivery of the megawatt-hours from those resources; or
(b) Megawatt-hours delivered to an electric utility's system from a renewable resource through a voluntary renewable energy purchase by a retail electric customer of the utility in which the renewable energy credits associated with the megawatt-hours delivered are retired on behalf of the retail electric customer.
"Social cost of greenhouse gas emissions" or "SCGHG" is the inflation-adjusted costs of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the generation of electricity, as required by RCW
80.28.405, the updated calculation of which is published on the commission's website.
"Unbundled renewable energy credit" or "unbundled REC" means a renewable energy credit that is sold, delivered, or purchased separately from the underlying electricity. All thermal renewable energy credits are considered unbundled renewable energy credits.
"Unspecified electricity" means an electricity source for which the fuel attribute is unknown or has been separated from the energy delivered to retail electric customers.
"Vulnerable populations" means communities that experience a disproportionate cumulative risk from environmental burdens due to: (a) Adverse socioeconomic factors, including unemployment, high housing and transportation costs relative to income, access to food and health care, and linguistic isolation; and (b) sensitivity factors, such as low birth weight and higher rates of hospitalization.