JACKSON, Wyo. — On May 14 and 15, Teton County heeded the green energy call by hosting the first annual Jackson Hole Summit: Energy, Economics and Environment at the Center for the Arts.
Local environmental nonprofits came together with the vision of bringing leaders, investors and policymakers from all over the state to share innovative solutions in the face of growing energy demands. While day one of the summit delved into statewide energy strategies, day two brought it back to a local level, with a focus on reducing energy use and emissions in Jackson Hole.
Lower Valley Energy (LVE) CEO Jim Webb’s presentation, “Understanding Teton County Energy and the Drivers of Power Consumption,” uncovered the economics and systems behind keeping the lights on in Teton County.
Webb explained that LVE serves Teton County as an electric and natural gas cooperative, which means it is run by a board and owned by the members that is serves. Webb said that the focus of LVE is offering reliability and competitive rates to hard-to-serve areas. He said that the cooperative was formed because rural areas needed energy.
“LVE is one out of 830 electric cooperatives across the country,” Webb said. “Cooperatives cover about 56% of the country but only about 13% of the people.”
According to Webb, LVE’s service area extends to the north entrance of Yellowstone, all the way to the southern towns of Smoot and Bondurant and over to Idaho, near Soda Springs.
“We have a big area to serve,” Webb said. “We are very isolated. We are tucked in among all the mountains. Something that makes us unique is … we don’t have any neighboring utilities. If you look at our region, it’s just LVE. We serve all of the towns.”
Due to the remoteness of the region, Webb said that LVE has had to build its own transmission lines. He said that the LVE region comprises 250 miles of transmission lines. Webb explained the difficulties of supplying electricity to a mountainous region, citing the 2017 wind storm, which knocked down power lines near Teton Village, as one of the worst power outages in the valley.
“This was the worst night of my life,” Webb said. “We had 17 transmission poles that fell to the ground. It was an unusually strong wind storm. … This was a double-circuit 115,000 volt transmission line (high-voltage) and that’s a big deal. We got that back up in four and a half days.”
Webb stressed that LVE tries to plan ahead so outages don’t happen by “hardening the system.” After the 2017 wind storm, Webb said that LVE’s board raised money and came up with a strategy to bury the high-voltage power lines along WY390.
“Now when you drive out there, you don’t see the transmission lines, you see the Tetons,” Webb said. “That’s how a co-op is different — an investor in utility would not have spent the extra money to come up with a solution that the local members wanted. If we have an outage, that’s a failure to me. Failure is not an option.”
According to LVE, the big issue right now is fire mitigation, prompting crews to bury lines, cut trees and clear areas to prevent wildfires and ultimately, power outages.
Webb said that LVE receives 80% of its electricity from hydropower, specifically from dams along the Snake River. Federal power agency Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which markets power off all of the federal dams along the Snake River drainage, gives LVE preference rights for purchasing power. In an effort to help native salmon populations, Webb said that about 25% of what LVE pays the BPA goes toward improving areas along the Snake River where fish spawn. Webb said that dams are a crucial part of the Northwest’s grid.
“The demand for electricity is skyrocketing and we can’t do without those dams right now,” Webb said. “They support thousands of megawatts of wind and solar. You need the muscle behind renewals. When it’s 20 below and the sun is not shining, we don’t want to have to use candles.”
Webb explained that Jackson Hole taps into different energy sources, depending upon the time of the year. In the summer, the Palisades Dam along the Snake River puts out enough hydropower to cover all of LVE’s needs. In the winter, Jackson’s energy mostly comes from coal, with some nuclear, wind, solar and natural gas. Webb says that when residents receive power to their home, a variety of different of energy sources are coming through the line.
“The grid is like a punch bowl,” Webb said. “All the power goes into the punch bowl. What goes into the bowl for LVE is mostly hydropower, but there is also coal and some nuclear. When we have our straw in the punch bowl, we get a mix of everything.”
According to Webb, LVE also produces green power from two low-impact hydro facilities: the Strawberry project in Bedford and the Swift Creek project in Afton. Another source of renewable energy for LVE is the Horse Butte Wind project in Idaho Falls, which generates approximately 40 kilowatts per month.
In 2011, LVE formed the joint power board Energy Conservation Works (ECW) with the Town of Jackson and Teton County, with the purpose of conserving energy and reducing emissions in Jackson Hole.
“For over 15 years, we’ve raised more than $11 million through SPET, grants and loans for energy conservation,” Webb said.
Webb shared that ECW’s latest initiative is to construct Wyoming’s first community solar project. The project, which will offer subscriptions to residential users, has secured land near Afton. A request for proposals for the construction of the 1 megawatt solar and battery energy storage facility is currently being considered by the Wyoming Energy Authority. Webb added that LVE allows net metering, which gives credits to customers who generate their own electricity through solar power.
“We allow the Town of Jackson to produce their own power and then we can virtually net meter,” Webb said.
Webb predicts that between now and 2033, energy demands in the Northwest will grow by 30%, which will cause LVE’s rates to increase. According to Webb, the average U.S. residential consumer uses 899 kilowatt hours per month, and in Wyoming the average customer uses 866 kilowatts hours per month. In comparison, the average Teton County resident uses 2012 kilowatt hours per month.
Webb asked audience members to guess why people in Teton County expend more kilowatt power, and the reasons yelled out were “cold winters,” “big houses” and “electric baseboard heat.” Webb reminded everyone that the best way to reduce rates is to conserve energy.
“The cheapest kilowatt is the one we don’t use,” Webb said.
