Materials:
- Final Report
- Council Presentation
- Contractor Presentation (revised 11/18)
- Council Staff Memo
- Comments from BEF
- Study Homepage
Background info:
The purpose of this study was to perform a review and inventory of the recent regional and national studies that have estimated hydropower potential in the Pacific Northwest – the inventory was to include a characterization of the parameters used to determine potential. You may recall many of these studies claim very high numbers of potential MW for the region, so it was important to find out how they were derived and possibly what was missing from the analysis. Many times, these studies only included physical potential and limited environmental screens – the economics of the potential projects and the Council’s protected areas were often not included. The goal of this study was to determine if a reasonable, realistic assumption for hydropower potential can be drawn for the PNW from these studies.
The Council released a request for proposals in July and selected the Northwest Hydroelectric Association to perform the work. We are finalizing a few components of the report from this study and will make it available next month prior to the meeting.