1. Overview of Northwest Wind Integration Action Plan
Natural Gas Advisory Committee
Portland, OR
December 5, 2006

2. Northwest windpower development

3. Northwest wind projects (Aug 2006)
Operating
Under construction
Planned
30+ MW MW

4. Key Northwest wind power integration issues
System flexibility
Regulation (within hour)
Load-following (hourly and greater)
Storage & shaping
Cost allocation
Transmission planning and expansion
Capacity value of wind

5. Organization

6. Approach and schedule
Phase 1: Identify strategies to integrate near-term (2006 – 09) windpower development
3000 MW, or more of wind (in aggregate)
January 2007 completion
Phase 2: Identification of operational, infrastructure, market and policy requirements to integrate long-term windpower development
6,000 MW, or more of wind
12-24 mos to complete,

7. Phase I findings
Forecast of near-term (2007 – 09) & longer-term wind development.
Initial estimate of the cost & availability of existing regulation & load-following capability.
Identification of near-term transmission expansion requirements.

8. Recommendations (Preliminary list)
How to proceed – cooperative agreement
Develop synthetic mesoscale wind resource data
Develop system flexibility marketing tools
Implement ACE diversity
Identify means of implementing needed near-term transmission expansion
Analyse cost of transmission to diverse resource areas
Further evaluate capacity value of wind
Identify strategies to maximize economic and environmental value of wind
Develop new transmission products
Develop strategy for augmenting system flexibility
Analyze trade offs - fish vs. flexibility