Spring 2015 • Volume 15 Issue 2

ENERGY INSIGHTS

A Rocky Mountain Power perspective on people and energy

Admiral Beverage Corporation likes to say they and their affiliated companies have been “quenching the thirst of the Pepsi generation for over 50 years.”

That thirsty crowd keeps the soft drink and water bottling company busy. Admiral Beverage’s Worland, Wyoming, plant cans and bottles more than 50,000 cases of product per day, according to maintenance manager Terry Pyer.

With help from Rocky Mountain Power, the company recently upgraded part of its compressed air system that runs the lines and other plant processes – increasing the system’s energy efficiency and improving its reliability.

Study offers solutionAdmiral Beverage’s original 100-horsepower plant air compressor ran well. However, expansions over the years at the facility eventually relegated the machine to backup status. As growth continued, the original compressor could not even serve that role if the plant’s newer primary compressor was offline for maintenance or went down unexpectedly.

“We always had to shut a line off to keep it running,” said Pyer. “And we did so much maintenance inside of that old, antiquated compressor. It was way undersized.”

In addition, the primary 150-horsepower inlet modulating plant air compressor ran at full load, whether or not the plant required it.

From a co-worker and a local vendor, Pyer learned Rocky Mountain Power’s wattsmart® Business program could help solve these challenges, and help Admiral Beverage save energy.

To start, Admiral Beverage obtained an energy analysis from Cascade Energy, paid for by Rocky Mountain Power’s program. The study provided potential savings and costs for recommended upgrades, along with an incentive offer from the utility.

Based on the analysis, Admiral Beverage chose to remove its old backup compressor, designate its inlet modulating compressor as standby and install a new 150-hp variable speed compressor to serve its primary air requirements. A variable speed air

compressor saves energy by producing air significantly more efficiently at part load than an inlet modulating machine.

“We not only are able to run it at low speed and save money because we’re doing that, it shuts off when it’s not needed,” said Pyer.

The upgrade has other benefits as well, he said. On the new compressor, maintenance is easy and “it’s got a brain on it that tells us when to do it.”

Incentives speed paybackAdmiral Beverage Corporation’s compressed air system upgrade is saving nearly 399,000 kilowatt-hours in electricity and nearly $15,800 in energy costs each year. The company received $50,445 in Rocky Mountain Power incentives for the project, reducing the simple payback from just over 4½ years to less than 1½ years.

While he considered lowering operational costs to be the best part of the utility’s energy efficiency program, Pyer said, “A close second would be learning that there are more efficient processes in the marketplace.”

For more information on wattsmart Business services and incentives, contact your account manager or visit wattsmart.com.

After an upgrade, energy savings pour in

Larry Elcock (left), Rocky Mountain Power customer and community manager, visits with Terry Pyer, Admiral Beverage Corporation’s maintenance manager. Rocky Mountain Power incentives helped the Worland bottling company improve its compressed air system.

Company retires Carbon Plant As planned, PacifiCorp closed its 61-year-old Carbon Plant near Helper, Utah, in mid-April.

The 172-megawatt-capacity, coal-fueled generation facility would have required costly retrofits to comply with the April deadline for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.

The company weighed carefully the compliance options, as well as costs and benefits to customers against the fact that the plant’s remaining depreciable life was already slated to end in 2020. Carbon’s location in a tight canyon also did not allow physical space for the retrofits.

Prior to the decision to close Carbon, 70 employees operated the facility. Most of the remaining workforce is transferring to other company generation facilities.

Kyle Davis, plant director, is proud of the plant’s strong safety record. Employees worked more than 1.9 million hours across 15 ½ years without a lost-time accident.

“Most of the employees have been dedicated to this plant for a long time – there are several of us who have spent our entire careers here,” said Davis. “We’ve been just as dedicated to safety.”

Carbon is the third coal-fueled power plant the company has decommissioned. The company will conduct environmental mitigation and cleaning activities as part of the process.

Resource needs to serve customers through the next decade will be met with energy efficiency, short-term market purchases, and wind and solar power purchase agreements.

Efficiency plays key role in resource planFuture customer energy needs are at the core of Rocky Mountain Power’s integrated resource planning. According to the 2015 Integrated Resource Plan filed in March with state regulatory commissions, new energy efficiency resources will meet the majority of the company’s load growth through the next decade. Low-cost, short-term firm market purchases will supply the rest of the company’s load growth over the first half of the 20-year planning horizon.

Resource transition continuingThe 2015 IRP also reflects the company’s ongoing transition from baseload thermal to renewables and flexible resources with the addition of 816 megawatts of executed wind and solar power purchase agreements from 36 projects scheduled to come on-line by the end of next year.

Across the long term, the company won’t need a new thermal generation resource until 2028. By 2034, the plan assumes about 2,800 MW of coal generation will be either retired or converted to natural gas.

The plan is a comprehensive decision support tool and roadmap that identifies the amount, type and timing of PacifiCorp’s expected future resource needs, accounting for costs, risks, public policy goals, and uncertainties inherent the electric utility business.

Plan guides actionsThe IRP is prepared every two years in a public forum where state regulatory agencies, customers and other stakeholders provide input.

“The IRP process involves exhaustive modeling and analysis, which we share with stakeholders, and results in a robust, responsible plan that will guide our actions on behalf of our customers,” said Rick Link, the company’s origination director, energy supply management.

Over the last several years, projected load growth across the company’s service area has flattened, first because of the economic recession, but also due to increased energy efficiency improvements.

“The increase in the potential for energy efficiency reflected in the IRP is driven partly by the recent emergence of LED lighting as a viable and rapidly-improving technology,” Link said.

The full resource plan is online at rockymountainpower.net/irp.

Partnerships help communities thriveRocky Mountain Power takes an active part in the communities it serves through employee volunteerism, corporate contributions, economic development, sponsorships and events. In addition, grants from the company’s charitable arm, the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation, help Wyoming community groups reach their goals.

Support for local arts, health servicesA recent $2,000 Rocky Mountain Power Foundation grant to the Rock Springs Renewal Fund is supporting the Broadway Theater’s family spring movie series. The newly renovated theater hosts movies, performing arts and more.

According to Katie Pastor, chair of the theater’s board of directors, “the financial support from the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation allows us to keep prices low while looking for more entertainment suitable to families.”

In Pinedale, the $3,000 in funds from the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation are helping Pinedale Fine Arts Council bring arts education to Sublette County students through classes and a variety of school performances.

For Wyoming Dementia Care, a recent $2,500 grant is assisting with Alzheimer’s and dementia caregiver support services.

Board chair Dr. David Wheeler said the foundation funding will play a positive role in the organization’s ability to reach and help caregivers through a collaborative partnership with Central Wyoming Counseling Center (CWCC).

“The award from the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation will help us continue to offer our caregivers one-on-one therapeutic counseling through referrals to CWCC’s professional staff. This service is an important part of meeting our mission to help them meet the daily challenges of Alzheimer’s and other dementia,” said Wheeler.

Other recent grant recipients include:

•Converse County Hospital Foundation

•YWCA of Sweetwater County

•Special Olympics Wyoming

•Downtown Clinic

Rocky Mountain Power employees also give back to the community with their time and money. The foundation matched 14,270 employee volunteer hours over the last year for a total of $80,000 to eligible nonprofit organizations across six states.

Learn more at rockymountainpower.net/foundation.

Pinedale Fine Arts Council in Wyoming received a grant to support the nonprofit’s arts education program for Sublette County school districts.

Reduce, reuse, respectEvery day Rocky Mountain Power works to provide you with safe, reliable electricity while following our commitment to protect and enhance the environment.

Encouraging energy efficiency as an energy resource: Saving energy conserves natural resources and keeps costs low. In 2014, Rocky Mountain Power’s Wyoming customers saved enough energy to power nearly 2,000 homes for a year.

Leading in renewable generation: Rocky Mountain Power and sister utility Pacific Power have the largest utility-owned wind fleet in the West. Since 2005, the company has invested in 1,800 megawatts of wind capacity, 2 megawatts of solar capacity and 12 megawatts of geothermal capacity.

Encouraging customer support: More than 100,500 customers are enrolled in the company’s Blue SkySM renewable energy program across six states. Over the past 15 years, Wyoming’s Blue Sky participants have supported renewable energy equal to planting 1.5 million trees.

Implementing air quality initiatives: Over the past 10 years, Rocky Mountain Power and Pacific Power’s total investments in energy efficiency, renewable resources and other air quality initiatives have lowered the company’s carbon emissions rate equal to 1.2 million cars off the road.

Leading in regional grid coordination: By participating in the energy imbalance market, Rocky Mountain Power uses state-of-the-art technology to optimize the electric grid, lowering costs and effectively integrating renewable energy.

What you can do: Some easy ways to shrink your environmental footprint are to use energy efficiently, sign up for Blue Sky renewable energy and choose paperless billing.

To learn more and view an infographic, visit rockymountainpower.net/respect.

For information on these and other topics, please visit rockymountainpower.net. If you have questions or content suggestions, please email energyinsights@rockymountainpower.net.

©2015 Rocky Mountain Power WY

Mobile app gives on-the-go access The new Rocky Mountain Power app makes it easy to pay bills or report power outages with a phone or tablet.

With the app, customers can:

•Pay bills quickly with a debit card, credit card or through a bank account

•Report a power outage or check the status of an outage

•Manage multiple electric accounts

•Review their account balance

•Stay updated with billing, payment and outage alerts

Customers can log in with an existing Rocky Mountain Power user ID and password or create an account through the app.

Download the free app on the App Store or Google Play. For more information, visit rockymountainpower.net/app.

Putting safety first Rocky Mountain Power is focused each day on creating a safe work environment for customers, employees and the public. As part of this commitment, the company provides free safety presentations and materials to customers and community groups.

Rocky Mountain Power offers the following guidelines to help keep workers safe:

•Unplug energized equipment before performing any maintenance or repairs.

•Use proper lockout/tagout procedures when working on machinery or equipment.

•Occupational Health and Safety Administration regulations require contractors and workers operating cranes or derricks to stay a minimum of 20 feet away from overhead power lines.

•Keep everything – you, the tools and materials you are handling, and the equipment you are operating – away from all power lines.

•Call 811 to have underground utilities located before digging.

The best defense against electrical hazards is using good judgment and common sense. Contact your account manager or visit rockymountainpower.net/safety to learn more.