May 27, 2026
By Kurt Miller and Kelly Fukai
Most of Washington's public energy debate
centers on AI and data centers. The April 2026 E3 resource adequacy study —
which the Seattle Times editorial board rightly called an alarm for
every Washingtonian — should reframe that conversation. The most challenging
problem facing the Pacific Northwest’s grid is not AI. It is
winter.
Winter cold demand is acutely peaked, weather-driven,
geographically diffuse across millions of homes, and most severe precisely when
wind and solar produce least. As Washington pushes heating from gas onto
electric heat pumps, that demand shifts onto the system hardest to expand fast
enough to absorb it.
The Northwest Public Power Association represents over 150
community-owned utilities accountable to their customers for rates.
The Northwest Gas Association represents the region's natural gas
distribution and gas transmission companies. For most of the region's
history, the two systems operated in parallel silos — electric
utilities managed the grid, gas utilities managed the pipe — and when
the region had abundant generation and comfortable margins, that separation
worked fine.
That era is over.
Electrification is shifting heating load from gas onto the
grid faster than transmission and generation can be built to absorb
it. At the same time, gas-fired generation is what the grid leans
on when wind and solar fall short — and a cold snap that strains gas
delivery also strains the power plants that depend on it. The two fuels are now
deeply interdependent. Our shared conclusion: reliability and affordability
both depend on treating energy diversity as a strength, not a problem to
engineer away.
Today, the natural gas system absorbs much of the winter
surge directly, heating millions of homes without placing equivalent pressure
on the grid — a vast reliability asset that policy discussions consistently
undercount.
We saw what happens when redundancy disappears. Over
Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in January 2024, a cold snap pushed the regional
grid to its limit. The Northwest was importing nearly 5,000 megawatts
from California and beyond. Wind generation collapsed across much of the
region. An unexpected outage hit Jackson Prairie, the region's largest natural
gas storage field, at the worst possible moment.
The Western Power Pool called it a tipping point; the region
narrowly avoided rolling blackouts. What the event made
undeniable: operating without excess capacity and fuel diversity
creates real risk. What rarely gets mentioned — on the coldest day of that
snap, direct-use natural gas supplied more than 70 percent of the region's
total energy needs, complementing the electric grid precisely when it was most
strained.
If heating demand shifts onto
the electric grid at the pace state policy contemplates, the scale
becomes enormous. E3 projects widespread building electrification could raise
regional winter peak demand by nearly 30 gigawatts — equivalent to
another Northwest hydropower system — while the region already faces a
nine-gigawatt shortfall by 2030. The problem is sharpest during prolonged cold,
when heat pump efficiency degrades and backup resistance heating kicks in,
creating needle peaks at the worst moment for grid operators.
The E3 analysis confirms what January
2024 demonstrated: meeting this challenge requires every tool working
together. New natural gas peaking generation is part of the least-cost reliable
pathway through the transition. Direct gas use in homes and businesses keeps
winter load off the grid — a distributed reliability asset no wire or battery
can easily replicate on the coldest days. Expanded renewables, new
transmission, and clean firm capacity are essential too. A diversified system
drawing on the complementary strengths of multiple fuels is the formula most
likely to deliver reliability and affordability through the transition.
What that means for Washington is concrete. State policy
should permit new natural gas peaking capacity as a bridge until
clean firm technologies are commercially mature. It should align the pace of
building and transportation electrification mandates with the rate at which
clean firm generation and transmission can be built. And it should treat direct
natural gas heating in homes and businesses as a reliability resource that
prevents those needle peaks from forming.
None of this is an argument against decarbonization
— significant progress is both achievable and necessary. It is an
argument for how we get there without leaving families cold or bills
unaffordable. The Pacific Northwest's energy strength has always come from
diversity: hydro and thermal, wind and solar, supply and efficiency, pipe
and wire working in concert. That same instinct — applied to a cleaner,
electrified future — remains the surest path to a reliable,
resilient, and affordable system. The answer is not all electric or all
gas. It is a smarter, better-integrated combination of both.
Kurt Miller is the CEO & Executive Director for the
Northwest Public Power Association, representing more than 150 community-owned
electric utilities across 10 Western states, including Washington.
