SCALE 2030

Gather a workgroup to modernize the Energy Independence Act (I-937) to align with Washington’s clean energy and emissions reductions goals beyond the current conservation acquisition and renewable portfolio standard requirements. A workgroup could consider a new framework that drives expanded demand-side focus from utilities, including options such as:

• Combining targets for conservation with new targets for load flexibility and behind-the-meter generation and storage to create a demand-side procurement target based on a percentage of peak load that would allow utilities the flexibility to pursue the demand-side rsources that make the most sense in their operations.
• Expanding conservation acquisition to explicitly include additional methods of acquiring conservation such as developing local stretch codes for commercial buildings, funding upgrades through Inclusive Utility Investment, and pursuing beneficial electrification.
• Removing the renewable portfolio standard requirement starting in 2030 when CETA’s greenhouse gas neutrality requirement phases in to reduce administrative burden on utilities and streamline overlapping policies.
• Replacing the renewable portfolio standard requirement with a load flexibility requirement.

Together, these changes can align utility incentives and customer programs with building decarbonization and development of distributed energy resources. Requirements should balance prescription with flexibility to allow utilities to pursue the strategies that most effectively advance clean buildings.

I-937, passed in 2008, was designed before grid flexibility, distributed energy resources, and building decarbonization were central features of Washington’s energy goals and systems. Expanding I-937 to be inclusive of newer strategies and resources would allow utilities to invest in a broader suite of tools and have much larger impact on reducing emissions, supporting building upgrades, and improving the reliability of their own systems. Modernizing the requirements creates alignment across state policies and encourages utilities to fully leverage buildings and DERs as grid resources.

In meeting updated I-937 targets, utilities should:

• Ensure that measures such as heat pumps, weatherization, electrification bundles, and storage are accessible to low-income households, renters, and small businesses through financing and rebates
• Strive to include all benefits in cost-effectiveness tests to fully capture health, comfort, resilience, and energy burden reduction benefits
• Fund community organizations to support outreach, enrollment, and program design
• Monitor distribution of program benefits across income groups, building types, geographic areas, etc.