When you turn on the lights, have you ever stopped and wondered where that electricity comes from? In Utah, the answer to that question is more complex than you might think.
Almost all of the energy produced in 2000 came from coal. Today, that number is 47%. But that doesn’t mean that half of the energy Utah consumes comes from coal.
“The resources in Utah do serve us, but they also serve customers in other states, and resources in other states serve us,” said Western Resource Advocates Utah Clean Energy Manager and Senior Attorney Sophie Hayes. “I think it's important to remember that we're deeply interconnected with the whole grid in the West.”
Utah is part of what’s called the Western Interconnection. It’s the grid that covers nearly the entire western United States and Canada and transmits power from generation facilities to homes and businesses.
After coal, natural gas is the next biggest Utah energy supplier at 36% followed by renewable energy sources like solar and geothermal at 17%.
Historically, most of the energy produced in Utah goes out of state, said Harry Hansen, deputy director of the Utah Office of Energy Development.
“Of all the imports that we bring in and all of that we export out, we're a net energy exporter, typically.”
According to data from Hansen’s office, Utah has been a net exporter since about 1980. The industry took hits after the 2008 financial crisis and the pandemic, however, and became a net importer. Hansen believes Utah is “real close” to moving back into exporter territory.
“Energy is not just power, it's also transportation fuels and heating fuels,” he said. “So when you take that entire story into the mix, that took us back a couple of steps.”
Rocky Mountain Power, and its Oregon-based parent company PacifiCorp, is the state’s largest power supplier, serving over 1 million customers and covering about 75% of the state. According to the company’s 2023 bi-annual integrated resource plan, with continued investments in renewable sources, carbon emissions in their six-state system are expected to drop by more than 60% of 2005 levels by 2030.
With the world’s largest enhanced geothermal project now underway in Milford, a hydrogen project in Delta and more renewable projects slated to come online in the coming years, renewable energy is a growing industry in Utah.
“We've seen a lot of development of renewable resources and that's primarily the resources that are being added,” Hayes said.
The original version of Rocky Mountain’s plan also announced that two of the state’s coal plants in Emery County would close early in 2032. However, a June Supreme Court decision temporarily blocking the Environmental Protection Agency’s “good neighbor” emissions rule led the company to backpedal on that decision and reinstate the original closing dates of 2036 and 2042.
State laws passed this year aimed at propping up the coal industry could also influence the state’s energy production mix going forward.
When it comes to zeroing in on where Utah’s energy comes from, Hansen said that’s hard to put a finger on. Since Utah is part of a much larger market, “it's kind of hard to tell you exactly what's going where.”
The one certain thing, Hansen said, is Utah’s demand for energy will only get bigger as the state continues to grow.
“It's just going to be more, more of it all, whether that's nuclear, geothermal, natural gas, coal, solar, wind, whatever,” he said. “Whatever it might be, we just need more.”
