139 



Northwest region.'" Puget delivered more energy savings in that 

 year than the Idaho Power Company, the Montana Power Company, 

 Pacificorp, Portland General Electric, and Washington Water Power 

 combined. In 1992, Puget did even better." 



There is no mystery about why Puget leads the pack so 

 decisively. Thanks to the Washington Utilities and Transportation 

 Commission, it is the only utility in the region with robust, 

 performance-based financial incentives to deliver cost-effective 

 conservation. The Regional Act's framers thought they had created 

 a mechanism for generating such incentives throughout the region; 

 that part of their vision has yet to be realized. 



I also want to note BPA's unmet opportunities in the 

 acquisition of inefficiently used water to improve hydropower 

 performance. Hydropower production and irrigation involve direct 

 tradeoffs; water removed from a river and evaporated or consumed by 

 crops cannot spin turbines, and often the losses are repeated at 

 multiple dams. Energy lost through new irrigation diversions in 

 Southern Idaho costs more than $60 per acre foot to replace, while 

 many irrigators are paying $7 to $10 for the same quantity of water 

 — and often producing surplus crops or diverting several times as 

 much water as their crops require. BPA can increase hydropower 

 production and help endangered salmon by buying back some of that 

 inefficiently used water. Yet the agency has made little progress 

 toward getting such a program off the ground. 



With regard to renewable energy, my principal complaint is a 

 flawed treatment of environmental costs that BPA was effectively 

 compelled to adopt during the previous Administration. See item 7 



"^Northwest Power Planning Council, The Green Book: Tracking 

 Pacific Northwest Electric Utility Conservation Achievements 1978- 

 1991 (Feb. 17, 1993), at p. 7. In none of the previous three years 

 did that percentage reach even 20%, 



" Puget savings for 1992 totalled almost 28 aMW. Statement of 

 Richard Sonstelie before the California Public Utilities 

 Commission, Full Panel Hearing on Demand-Side Management Policy 

 Issues (Feb. 25, 1993) . 



