In another round of debate that’s become as perennial in the Legislature as the Seahawks playing in the Super Bowl, renewable energy advocates are squaring off with utilities over Washington state’s renewable energy mandate.

Voters put the mandate into place in 2006, when they approved Initiative 937, which sets out a series of targets the state’s 17 largest utilities to hit. Voters exempted hydroelectricity from counting as a renewable energy source, focusing on wind and solar energy generation instead, along with energy efficiency measures.

The first target was 3 percent of their power loads by 2012, which jumps to 9 percent of loads by 2016, and finally to 15 percent by 2020.

Utilities reported to the Senate Energy Committee this week that the quickly approaching 2016 target appears achievable without too much difficulty, but it’s the 2020 target that’s tricky. Load growth isn’t set to increase by all that much, meaning utilities aren’t clamoring to find new power projects.

And yet, they’ll have to find ways to meet the standard over the next five years. Some wind and solar generating projects will assist with that, but a common complaint from the utilities was that I-937 was forcing them to acquire renewable energy credits for wind, solar and other projects outside the state, such as Idaho. Seattle City Light, for example, has identified a need of 1.6 million renewable energy credits it will have to acquire by 2020; it has about half that currently.

So, just as there have been over the last several years, a host of Republican lawmakers are proposing ways to change I-937 to amend its requirements. Some bills want to expand its definition to include nuclear energy and something called “incremental hydropower” — small gains in power production capability through efficiency projects.

Renewable energy advocates and some Democratic lawmakers are pushing back against the efforts, arguing the state needs cleaner power sources beyond natural gas, or coal. The state’s only coal-powered electric plant, the TransAlta facility in Chehalis, is set to shut down, partially by 2020 and fully by 2025, taking 1,340 megawatts of power off line with it. Puget Sound Energy, Washington’s largest utility, gets 24 percent of its electricity from coal-fired generation. They also own a large share of a coal-burning plant in Montana, Colstrip, that delivers power to Washington state.

Scene at a coal-loading facility.

Solar energy generation has been small scale, although a proposal by Rep. Jake Fey, D-Tacoma, and backed by Gov. Jay Inslee, would seek to expand its production by 150 megawatts in the coming years, a significant increase from the current capacity of about 30 megawatts. Wind power offers the opportunities for larger-scale projects, but have been criticized as forcing utilities to switch to natural-gas burning when the wind isn’t blowing to meet demand.

Washington has one nuclear energy project that’s been in operation for decades, the 1,150-megawatt Columbia Generating Station in the Tri-Cities area. Sen. Sharon Brown, R-Kennewick, has been a proponent of expanding nuclear energy production in the state, and is carrying the bills to classify it as a renewable energy source under I-937 as well as a tax incentive for small-modular nuclear reactors that could bring 200 to 300 megawatts of power online.

Sen. Sharon Brown, R-Kennewick

Proponents consider that a way to expand nuclear energy usage without taking on the mega projects; Washington became nationally known for the municipal bond default that occurred when nuclear power proponents failed in their attempt to build a series of nuclear energy reactors around the state in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Only one was built, the Columbia Generating Station.

Brown’s proposals met stiff opposition from lobbyists with Climate Solutions, Renewable Northwest and the Northwest Energy Coalition during a hearing Thursday afternoon in the Senate Energy Committee.

They argued it doesn’t pass a legal smell test because nuclear, while a clean-source of energy in that it doesn’t put off carbon emissions, requires its fuels source to be spent in the process of producing electricity —therefore it’s not a renewable energy source.

“One of the major premises of I-937 was to diversify Washington’s energy sources,” said Joni Bosh of the Northwest Energy Coalition. “The fuel for nuclear reactors is not renewable.”

Sen. John McCoy, D-Tulalip, argued that the technology for small modular reactors was too new to meet commercial scale manufacturing demands, and would need a lengthy regulatory review process from the federal government before it could start taking hold in Washington state. He also questioned where the spent fuel from the reactors would go, as Washington would have to find a site to store it.

Sen. John McCoy, D-Tulalip

“It’s too early to bring these bills forward,” McCoy said. “We have plenty of time to discuss this in the future.”

Debbie Bone-Harris of the Franklin County Public Utility District testified that small-modular reactors were the best option to consider for long-range power planning, beyond the use of coal-fired electricity.

“We truly believe that looking at SMR as a baseload resource for our future loads is the only way to go,” Bone-Harris testified.

She also testified that Franklin PUD has all the power it needs for the next 10 years, something Sen. Jim Honeyford, R-Sunnyside, keyed upon in pushing to change I-937.

“We have power companies now that have power coming out of their ears,” Honeyford said. “Will that ever be addressed?”

Rebecca Johnson of Climate Solutions said the state should not be taking on I-937 on a piecemeal basis, such as in the bills Brown was pushing for.

“We need to be looking at this comprehensively, and not taking it piece by piece,” Johnson said.

But to Bone-Harris, Washington has already achieved the main thrust of I-937, and needs to rethink its next steps for the future.

“We’ve reached the goal,” Bone-Harris said. “We’ve added a lot of renewables.”

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