WCEC notified PSE’s IRP Team and WUTC staff of a systematic flaw in Puget Sound Energy’s demand-forecasting methodology that has recurred across PSE’s IRPs since at least 2013. The artificial upticks in 10-year-out demand projections have been used to justify costly infrastructure projects like Energize Eastside.
- PSE’s 2023 IRP Progress Report projects ~1.8% annual demand growth — but adjusted for prior-IRP demand reductions, the trend would actually be -0.4% if extrapolated correctly past 2033.
- PSE attributed the reversal to electric vehicles, but the EV wedge in PSE’s own charts shows no sudden 2033 inflection.
- The actual cause: PSE models electrical efficiency opportunities only during the first 10 years of its 20-year forecast, then assumes efficiency gains stop — an unrealistic policy.
- A Synapse Energy Economics analysis (commissioned by the City of Newcastle) shows the same artifact in PSE’s 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2019 IRPs — the projected rise appears ~10 years after each IRP date, regardless of actual demand trends.
- WCEC warned that if the 2023 IRP includes this flaw, the coalition will ask the UTC to reject the IRP.