Avista engineers grid updates in downtown Spokane

With an ever-increasing customer demand for electricity, Spokane-based Avista Corp. is updating and modernizing the electrical grid that powers the city, said Heather Rosentrater, of Avista.

Rostentrater is senior vice president of energy delivery and shared services and has been leading the grid modernization efforts made by Avista for the last 15 years, she said.

“We have a significant responsibility to provide energy to our customers. We know that’s an essential service and our customers want it to be reliable, clean, and sustainable,” Rosentrater said. “They need it to be affordable as well.”

Rosentrater said Avista is making investments to update the electrical grid for its customers both through energy generation and through infrastructure improvements.

“There’s a lot of work going on to identify new infrastructure,” she said. “Those are usually identified based on growth in an area or asset conditions.”

Avista’s infrastructure modernization projects usually aren’t easily visible. However, it is planning a $4.5 million substation at a large site bordered by Third Avenue to the south, Post Street to the west, and Wall Street to the east.

The site, now owned by Avista, previously was home to a Domino’s Pizza outlet, a convenience store, and surface parking.

Rosentrater said the project’s timing was based on asset conditions.

“The downtown area in general has a long life. It was one of the first areas built up in Spokane, so the standards that the previous substation was built under have changed over time,” she said. “We’re finding it important to rebuild that station in our current standards.”

The city’s current energy needs require a bigger footprint for the substation, she said.

“It will have updated communication, updated protection devices, and will operate even more quickly with automation of those circuits.”

The 39,100-square-foot substation will transmit and distribute electricity to homes and businesses in the downtown and lower South Hill areas.

The project will increase energy efficiency through automated voltage regulation and switches to isolate and restore energy from a power outage.

“What used to take hours will take minutes because of these upgrades to our system,” Rosentrater said.

A contractor hasn’t been selected yet, according to permit information on file with the city of Spokane.

Spokane-based Wolfe Architectural Group PS is the project architect, and DCI Engineers, of Spokane, is providing engineering services.

Grading and site work has already begun, and the project is anticipated to be completed next summer, permit data shows.

An existing substation located at 158 S. Post, adjacent to the Steam Plant Square complex, will be decommissioned once the new substation is completed.

Rosentrater said Avista also recently has completed another infrastructure improvement project that started about 10 years ago, with the installation of smart meters in Washington state.

“As loads change seasonally, we can now switch loads around from one circuit to another that might be more heavily loaded in the summer to another that’s less loaded,” she said. “Having that additional visibility at the meter level … helps us to balance out the system, improving grid efficiency.”

In the South Landing area of the University District, the development arm of Avista has created an ecodistrict that includes the Scott Morris Center for Energy Innovation and the Catalyst Building. Two future buildings also are envisioned in the ecodistrict.

The Scott Morris Center’s central heating, cooling, and electrical systems support its own energy needs as well as those of the Catalyst building.

Rosentrater refered to those projects as grid-friendly buildings and said it’s another way Avista’s grid modernization efforts support affordability.

Avista is able to influence when those buildings use energy from thermal storage onsite by preheating or pre-cooling that storage, which allows the building’s peak energy usage to be offset from the grid’s peak energy use.

In the Scott Morris Center, Avista also has partnered with energy companies to create an energy lab that allows for grid simulation tests that help prepare the system for wildfire resiliency.

“We’re able to simulate those conditions in the lab before we apply those changes on our system,” she said.

One of Avista’s areas of focus for grid modernization is wildfire resiliency through grid hardening, she said.

Hardening involves changing transmission poles from wood to steel and changing out the wood cross arms to fiberglass and includes automating more of the system, she said.

The grid modernization will evolve continually as it’s an ongoing effort, and the cost of replacing older infrastructure is a challenge as prices increase, which puts pressure on customers’ rates and bills.

Improvements to the electrical grid are paid for with federal and state grants including from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and from the Washington state Department of Commerce in addition to rate increases.

“We’re watching the federal infrastructure funding that’s being rolled out, and it seems to be some opportunity to potentially apply for support through that, that could help offset those impacts to customers,” she said. “We’ve received a Smart Grid Grant in Spokane, a smart city grant as part of a consortium in the region in Pullman, and we were a part of a workforce training grant in the region.”

A greater number of people are using a larger amount of energy in their daily lives, which has put a strain on electrical grid infrastructure that was installed about 50 years ago, she said.

Balancing that growing demand for energy with sustainability and affordability is a constant challenge for the utility company to meet.

“Some customers rely on electricity at their homes for transportation and as they get electric vehicles,” she said. “They have a different expectation for reliability, energy, and even their relationship with us as the utility provider.”

Customers can now generate power at their homes with solar panels, and that also changes the way customers can engage with Avista and the grid itself, she explains.

“We’ll continue to see technology advance, and what wasn’t cost-effective five years ago may become cost-effective,” Rosentrater said. “We’re testing and piloting different things to execute when those kinds of things become viable.”