Council working toward mid-July decision on releasing draft Ninth Power Plan for public review, comment

The Council is getting closer to a possible decision on whether to approve releasing a draft of the Ninth Power Plan to the public. The vote may come as soon as its meeting in Portland on July 14-15. If approved, it would commence a public comment period and hearing process in the four-state region. The public would be invited to attend hearings held in cities and towns across the Pacific Northwest and provide their input and thoughts on the proposed plan. The goal is to adopt the final Ninth Plan by the end of the year.

Under the Northwest Power Act of 1980, the Council represents the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana in producing a 20-year plan for the Northwest's electricity grid. The plans are reviewed and updated on roughly five-year cycles. The four Northwest governors appoint two Council Members each; they work with the staff in developing the power plan and will decide on approving it. The Council's power plans assure the four-state region of an adequate, efficient, economical, and reliable power supply.

The primary components of each plan are a load forecast that looks out over the next two decades, and then a strategy for a cost-effective portfolio of the supply- and demand-side resources to add to the grid to meet this need for energy in the future.

The Ninth Plan will have a priority "action plan" period of 2027-2032; the Council will be developing its next power plan toward the end of this period. At a June 16 meeting, the Council discussed including a proposed resource strategy for this six-year period, whose major components include:

• Energy conservation - 1,060 average megawatts (aMW). The target would be split between 860 aMW (up to $150/MWh) in Oregon and Washington, and 200 aMW (up to $70/MWh) in Idaho and Montana.
• Demand response - 590 MW
• Voltage regulation - 220 MW
• Renewables - 9,000 MW
• Storage - 5,200 MW
• Natural gas - 2,100 MW

The Council expressed strong interest in hearing from the region during the upcoming public comment period on this proposed strategy, as well as other elements within the Ninth Plan. In particular, the Council is seeking feedback on any changes that would result in a more reliable, more economic, and more adequate system.

Before releasing a draft plan, Power Division staff is conducting a final resource adequacy check on this proposal. The Council also discussed a broad suite of recommendations in support of the resource strategy that focus on Bonneville Power Administration, energy conservation, demand response, supply-side resource development, transmission, data centers, research and development, and other topics.

To help catch up on the process that the Council has undertaken to reach this point, here's a recap of some of the major steps and milestones from 2025-26.

Resource costs, availability, and more attributes

One early step in the process entailed Power Division staff briefing the Council on generating resources' reference plants for the Ninth Plan. These specify attributes like capacity, transmission access, or location, as well as financing and costs. These estimates and assumptions were checked with the Generating Resources Advisory Committee, which consists of Northwest utilities, energy providers, experts, and other regional partners.

The primary supply-side resource options for the Ninth Plan are land-based wind, solar, battery storage, and natural gas plants. Other resources options include off-shore wind, pumped storage, and geothermal. The Ninth Plan is using proxies for emerging technologies - covering clean long-duration storage, clean baseload, and clean peaker/medium duration storage - so models can evaluate and assess needs for their general attributes without being overly prescriptive on technologies whose costs and timelines to commercial viability are uncertain.

Some resources like wind, solar, batteries, and natural gas plants are assumed to be available at the beginning of the Ninth Plan's timeline in 2027, while others such as offshore wind and emerging technologies will be available later. Staff used scenario modeling to test different assumptions about resource and transmission availability, as well as explore more areas of uncertainty and risk.

In June 2025, staff provided the Council with a briefing on their analysis of the 20-year potential for demand-side resources such as energy conservation and demand response.

This is technical achievable potential. The Council used resource optimization modeling (explained in more detail below) to compare supply-side options with demand-side resources, and identify proposed amounts to include in the Ninth Plan.

Load forecast & needs assessment

In spring 2025, Council power planners produced a new 20-year load forecast for the Northwest power system.

The average growth rate per year for annual energy ranges between 1.8% - 3.1% from 2027-2046; it ranges between 1.9% - 3% for peak demand over those two decades. On the low end, the system grows by about 30-40% by 2046; on the high end it approximately doubles. Major drivers of future growth are expected to be data centers, electric vehicles, building electrification, as well as economic and population growth.

Council power planners used new computer modeling capabilities to get a deep understanding of future energy needs that gets down to hourly, daily, monthly, and annual levels of demand from 2027-2046. This helps the Council better assess impacts on peak, including for future summer heatwaves and winter storms.

• Watch a video explaining how the Council is helping prepare the Northwest's electricity grid for future extreme weather events.

The Ninth Plan uses five load trajectories that cover different potential growth patterns: persistent high growth, persistent low growth, early growth, late growth, and a mixed bag (as shown in the chart below). The Council's goal is to craft a cost-effective resource strategy that is robust across these different load trajectories, while ensuring power system adequacy and reliability.

In winter 2026, staff completed a needs assessment for the Northwest power system that analyzed the year 2031. A needs assessment compares the capabilities of the existing power grid in the Northwest against forecasted energy demand. The Ninth Plan's cost-effective resource strategy will solve this resulting gap and achieve an adequate power supply for the region.

The main takeaway of this study were:

• Peak needs in all seasons, particularly the winter and summer
• Energy signal for summer and winter
• Longest and largest events to solve for are in the winter

For this study, the Council leveraged its new, innovative method for protecting the Northwest power grid's resource adequacy. We now use multiple metrics to plan for resource adequacy.

Many electricity grids in the U.S. still use a one-day-in-10-years adequacy standard. While that gauges the potential frequency of an energy shortfall, it doesn't provide information about its magnitude or duration, or the season in which it will occur. Under a one-day-in-10-years standard, the Council was concerned that a major energy shortfall could masquerade itself and be permitted to occur.

With a multi-metric approach, it is now possible to understand the shape, size, duration, and seasons of adequacy issues. This is a major advancement in helping the Council and the region plan for needed solutions. We are one of the first power planners in the U.S. to adopt this multiple-metric resource adequacy standard.

Resource optimization modeling

Council power planners spent the winter and early spring of 2026 conducting resource optimization modeling that tested different buildouts of the Northwest power system over the next two decades. The main finding is that a portfolio of cost-effective supply- and demand-side resources will be needed to meet the future need for energy in the region. Results were presented at the Council's meeting in Whitefish, MT, in April.

The Council tested different fuel prices, water years, wind profiles, solar profiles, and temperatures. Using scenario modeling, power planners tested 13 sensitivities total. Four of these sensitivities relate to potential changes in the operations of the Columbia Basin hydrosystem, while the remaining nine analyze differences in new resource and transmission assumptions. The buildout of each sensitivity seeks to meet the power system's future needs as identified in the needs assessment.

Power planners used the Council's multi-metric resource adequacy standards to test each of the 13 results and thus ensure it would be an adequate power supply. All 13 passed the adequacy tests.

There were some consistent themes that showed up across all 13 sensitivities. From 2027-2032, staff's analysis found:

• Energy conservation, demand response, wind, solar, battery storage and natural gas show up in every sensitivity in all years available.
• Long duration energy storage also shows up in all but two. This resource was not permitted in one sensitivity; in the second its costs increased 50% higher.

The main drivers for resource builds were economics (the model sought least-cost buildout across the range of uncertainty), adequacy (model ensures loads are met and sufficient reserves are held), and policy (model ensures that policies are met, including clean energy & hydro operations requirements).