In 2019, Governor Inslee signed into law the Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA), committing Washington to provide electricity free of greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. CETA includes three key milestones:

• Remove coal as a source of electricity by 2025
• Serve carbon-neutral electricity by 2030, consisting of at least 80% clean electricity and up to 20% non-clean electricity with alternative compliance actions
• Serve 100% clean electricity by 2045

CETA includes rules to keep electricity affordable, reliable and ensure all customer benefit from the clean electricity transformation.

The UTC is the regulatory body charged with enforcing the rules of Washington's Clean Energy Transformation Act. The UTC will:

• Review PSE’s draft CEIP
• Approve, deny or modify PSE’s final CEIP 
• Oversee implementation of PSE’s CEIP

To help plan for the clean electricity transition, PSE plans out the electricity system years in advance to ensure we can always serve our customers’ growing energy needs. 

The Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) identifies how PSE provides cost-effective electricity and natural gas to reliably meet our customers’ needs over the next 20+ years, and the Clean Energy Action Plan identifies the lowest reasonable cost strategy for the next 10 years. 

The Clean Energy Implementation Plan (CEIP) is a 4-year plan that maps out timely and equitable progress toward these milestones based on community input and the needs and strategies identified in long-range planning documents.

The CEIP is new, and focuses on the actions PSE will take over the next four years towards serving carbon neutral electricity by 2030.  It is informed by community input and will be adjusted to integrate learnings during the next four years.

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People who are at higher risk of experiencing environmental impacts due to social, economic and other conditions. The Equity Advisory Group has advised this definition specifically include economic stress, housing costs, race/ethnicity, historically redlined communities, disability, seniors, language, mental health and home care.

People located in areas that are highly impacted by climate change and fossil fuel pollution. This is defined by the Washington State Department of Health Cumulative Impact Analysis.

PSE customers who use electricity in their home.

PSE customers who use electricity in their business.

A community stakeholder group that advises PSE on equitable delivery of benefits and burden reduction related to the clean electricity transformation and other topics. The EAG: 

• Defines how the CEIP addresses equity
• Provides input and feedback on planning documents
• Supports community engagement activities

In addition to the Equity Advisory Group, PSE’s other advisory groups include:

• Integrated Resource Plan stakeholders 
• Low Income Advisory Committee
• Conservation Resource Advisory Group

PSE consults these advisory groups on CEIP topics related to their focus areas.

Community-based organizations (CBOs) are important and trusted service providers for the communities they serve. A key component of our outreach activities includes building relationships with CBOs to better reach vulnerable populations and highly impacted communities. 

We want to express our gratitude to the CBOs who helped us organize meetings with their communities and add their voice to the draft CEIP. 

• Boys and Girls Club Skagit County
• El Centro de la Raza
• Island Senior Resources 
• NAACP Bremerton
• Opportunity Council of Island County
• Provail
• The Rainbow Center
• WWU’s Institute for Energy Studies 

If you have a community-based organization interested in working with PSE on clean electricity topics, send us a message at ceip@pse.com.

Stakeholders called for benefits that result in lower greenhouse gas emissions and reduced fossil fuel extraction. In addition to reducing the impacts of climate change, stakeholders wanted actions to also produce benefits in other categories, such as job creation, cleaner air, improved public health, energy independence, and long-term cost savings.

Stakeholders asked for cleaner air and improved community health. These comments also commonly called for a way to measure public health more broadly, including healthcare expenditures, mental health, and other measures of physical wellness.  

Stakeholders want affordable electric bills, especially for low-income populations. These comments asked for opportunities to reduce electricity bills by enabling low-income households to generate their own electricity or reduce the amount of electricity they consume through energy efficiency measures. Stakeholders also suggested using affordability incentives to get more people to participate in clean electricity programs. Business customers asked for cost assistance programs to help them purchase and install new technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Stakeholders suggested that the clean electricity transition should create living wage jobs and create local economic benefits. Stakeholders called for educational, training and apprenticeship programs that could make clean energy jobs accessible for low-income and other vulnerable populations, retrain people with jobs connected to the fossil fuel industry, and prepare youth who are starting to think about their career paths.

Stakeholders said cost should not be a barrier for low-income populations to participate in clean electricity programs, particularly for populations that have historically been more impacted by pollution and energy insecurity. Stakeholders also wanted to address education and awareness barriers by increasing outreach about clean electricity programs or making the programs an automatic component of PSE’s electricity service.

Stakeholders proposed offering low-income households and other vulnerable populations the ability to generate their own electricity through solar panels as a way of reducing their electricity bills. Stakeholders called for enhancing programs like community solar and making it easier for people to install rooftop solar panels in tandem with electricity storage devices to increase access to these benefits. Businesses also were interested in the potential for solar power programs to reduce electricity bills through net metering programs.

Stakeholders wanted to make the power grid more reliable and less susceptible to mass power outages. They suggested tools like battery storage devices, microgrids, and rooftop solar could decrease the number of households that experience power outages during disaster events like major storms or earthquakes.   

Stakeholders said it was important for them to feel secure about their electricity service. Some said they needed more information about the dependability of variable resources like wind and solar to feel secure. Stakeholders also said they would benefit from knowing the electricity they consumed was not contributing to environmental problems like climate change and air pollution. Business customers said they took satisfaction knowing the electricity that serves their business was reliable. They also asked for ways to demonstrate the environmental values they share with their customers through participation in clean electricity programs.