Washington Adopts Clean Electricity Regulations

OLYMPIA, WA — Washington state has taken the next step towards meeting its goal of fully transitioning to emission-free electricity by the year 2045.

Tuesday, the Washington State Department of Commerce and Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission announced that they had adopted a new set of rules to conform with the state's Clean Energy Transformation Act.

The Clean Energy Transformation Act, or CETA, was passed last year and sets a hard deadline for the state: requiring that all the state's electricity be generated without creating greenhouse gas emissions by 2045.

To meet that deadline, the Utilities and Transportation Commission and the Department of Commerce say they have been meeting for the past 18 months and have now developed and adopted a new set of rules that will help utilities meet CETA's requirements.

CETA requires that state electric utilities meet several key deadlines:

• 2025: Eliminate coal-fired electricity.
• 2030: Fully transition to carbon-neutral energy supply.
• 2045: Source all electricity from renewables or non-carbon emitting sources.

The Department of Commerce says formalizing these rules is an important step towards making green energy a reality for Washington.

“This rule is one of the key pieces of one of our most important policies for building Washington’s clean energy future," Commerce Director Lisa Brown said. "Ensuring that all customers and communities can have equal opportunity to participate in the benefits of 100% clean electricity was a top priority in developing the new rules."

The rules explain how utilities can plan for CETA changes, how they can acquire their new, cleaner energy resources, how to calculate their current greenhouse gas emissions, and better understand how their emissions impact vulnerable communities.

The regulations apply to investor-owned utilities like Puget Sound Energy, plus the 64 municipal and public utilities across the state.

The Washington Department of Commerce says their new ruleset will also help meet other key CETA requirements, like:

• Ensuring that the transition to greener energy benefits everyone equitably, making sure clean energy is available for all customers and making programs available to help low-income customers.
• Creating tax incentives for renewable energy development.
• Ensuring electric utilities adopt their own CETA implementation plans by the end of 2021.

The new rules will go into effect on Jan 29.