Avista announces goal to offer 100 percent clean electricity by 2045

Energy company Avista announced its goal to provide customers with 100 percent clean electricity by 2045.

“We’re proud to announce this 100 percent clean electricity goal as an important step forward in caring for our environment while continuing to meet the energy needs of our customers and communities today and well into the future,” Avista President Dennis Vermillion said. “Since Avista’s founding on clean, renewable hydropower in 1889, we’ve served our customers with an electric generation resource mix that is more than half renewable, allowing us to keep our carbon emissions among the lowest in the nation.”

The company also announced plans to have a carbon-neutral supply of electricity by the end of 2027.

“Avista has always been committed to balancing reliability and affordability while maintaining responsibility for our environmental footprint, and our actions demonstrate these values. Just in the last three years, we’ve implemented three renewable energy projects on behalf of our customers. Our Community Solar project in Spokane Valley, Wash., Solar Select project in Lind, Wash. and the Rattlesnake Flat Wind project in Adams County, Wash. together have allowed us to add to the clean electricity we already provide, meet the energy needs of our customers without increasing their bills and drive economic vitality in these communities,” Vermillion said.

Avista provides electric service to 388,000 customers and natural gas to 355,000 customers in eastern Washington, northern Idaho, and parts of southern and eastern Oregon.

“Avista’s clean energy focus is not limited to the electric generation resource mix. We view clean energy as a key element in driving economic development and shaping the sustainable communities of the future,” Vermillion said. “Avista has created companies like Itron, Ecova, and Relion that play a role in supporting clean energy and the efficient use of electricity. We serve as a founding partner of Urbanova, Spokane’s Smart City living laboratory that is testing smart city concepts and we’re creating an Ecodistrict in Spokane that will allow the company to not only shape how the grid of the future will operate but also define how buildings can be developed to operate and utilize energy in the most efficient manner.”

Vermillion added that the company is committed to investing in research, development and a smarter grid to support the lower costs and clean electricity future.

“We are well on our way to achieving our goal of 100 percent clean electricity and will continue to engage with our customers, partners, and regulators to make this goal a reality,” Vermillion said.