||| FROM KRISTA BOUCHEY for ORCAS POWER & LIGHT COOPERATIVE |||
OPALCO has been engaging the co-op membership in the realities facing the energy world. Things are changing due to climate impacts, carbon reduction legislation, and the transition to renewable energy. As our regional energy supply reaches capacity, utilities throughout the country are pursuing carbon-free power sources.
OPALCO has been exploring local renewable energy options in San Juan County, balancing the cost of these
projects, aesthetic trade-offs, and limited land for siting against the need to provide reliable power. This winter OPALCO conducted a member survey to gather information on the direction the membership wants OPALCO to take for our energy future.
OPALCO worked with a third-party vendor to conduct the survey. The first part of the survey was a
representative sample to have a statistically relevant data set. The survey questions assessed general
perceptions of OPALCO, tested awareness of and reception to local renewable project development, and
gauged member priorities for projects.
Key takeaways from the representative portion of the survey were:
- High satisfaction rate with OPALCO overall (94%)
- Maintaining and improving service and reducing dependence on mainland energy were top priorities
- Members want OPALCO to prioritize renewable energy but only about half are willing to pay more for
it - Members emphasized protecting the environment, improving reliability, and keeping costs down
- 82% say it’s very or somewhat important to build local resources to minimize future power disruptions
- 74% said San Juan County should adjust policies for more local energy generation with most
emphasizing that all environmental, conservation, and safeguards should be met - Impacts on scenic views and wildlife were top concerns followed closely by an increase to cost
- 80% support local renewable energy projects
After the representative portion of the survey was complete, OPALCO opened the survey up to the whole
membership to give everyone the chance to weigh in. Since this portion of the data does not rely on random
sampling and cannot be treated as a representative sample – the two data sets should not be compared. The
results from the open portion of the survey include high satisfaction rate, high awareness of the energy issues in San Juan County, and prioritizing microgrids and rooftop solar projects.
The Board has reviewed the material closely and will utilize the data as they balance the competing priorities of having low cost, carbon-free, reliable power. These three criteria are almost impossible to meet in tandem, so the team is looking at ways to balance all three priorities.
Members can find the full survey report and comments on our website in the Document Library:
www.opalco.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Complete-Survey-Materials.pdf. If you have additional comments, feel free to email communications@opalco.com
Orcas Power & Light Cooperative (OPALCO) is our member-owned cooperative electric utility, serving more than 11,400 members on 20 islands in San Juan County. OPALCO provides electricity that is 97% greenhouse-gas free and is generated predominantly by hydroelectric plants. OPALCO was founded
in 1937.
**If you are reading theOrcasonian for free, thank your fellow islanders. If you would like to support theOrcasonian CLICK HERE to set your modestly-priced, voluntary subscription. Otherwise, no worries; we’re happy to share with you.**
It’s interesting to read through the comments that begin on page 64, which reflect how I felt about the survey: that I was being propagandized. The structure and wording of the survey was clearly designed to get the results you wanted. It’s nice to see that so many people noticed this.
“Stop using scare tactics like those in this survey.”
“All of the ‘concerns’ generated in this survey were scare-tactics”
“I really don’t like this being called a survey when it was an attempt to change someone’s mind”
“I’m uncomfortable with the design of your survey because it very clearly aims for specific outcomes. ”
“This survey coaches the user to an answer that opalco wants”
“Some of these questions seem biased to the answer you want.”
“The survey is a bit suggestive”
“The survey assumes that blackouts are coming”
“The [way] this survey was worded was extremely biased”
“The wording of this survey could have been better the options are very slanted in a way that i find gives me pause and want to further [scrutinize] your motives”
“This survey is worded in such a way as to pursue your agenda. ”
“This survey appears to built to [steer] responses based on creating fear of a dystopian energy future.”
“This is a totally biased survey. The questions are framed to collect the predetermined desired response”
“This is an unfair survey, due to the choices allowed”
“This is hardly an objective survey. The structure is clearly biased and meant to raise alarms.”
“[The] questions in this survey often felt biased. That does not help trust.”
“This questions in this survey often felt biased. That does not help trust.”
“This survey is a crock of s**t…. Carefully worded and designed to steer respondents toward the answers you want.”
“This survey is poorly written and clearly has an agenda. It uses scare tactics”
“This survey is so patently biased towards getting customers to agree to large scale renewable projects, it’s unbelievable.”
“This survey seems designed to arrive at predefined conclusions.”
“This survey was a barely [hidden] attempt to sway [opinions]”
“This survey was poorly drafted and is very biased toward creating a sense of guilt”
“This survey was worded in a very biased way to skew the responses toward accepting, embracing, and willing to finance renewable energy projects.”
“This survey, the wording of the questions and choices seems biased and simplified.”
“This was a ridiculous and incredibly biased survey.”
“This was a very bizarre survey. The questions were leading, there was no option for ‘other’ for most of them.”
“Your survey has inadequate response options and is fraught with survey bias.”
Krista from OPALCO here.
The survey was intended to provide information to ensure the members understand the various factors and tradeoffs OPALCO is facing. We appreciate the feedback, and it’s a useful reminder that we have to find a variety ways to gather input from the co-op membership.
OPALCO has the complete survey summary with verbatim comments that include lots of positive and further inquiries into the issues we are facing. The OPALCO Leadership team has reviewed ALL of the comments and will use the data as they plan for our energy future. If you have further comments or feedback to share with the Board for them to consider, email communications@opalco.com.
Thank you OPALCO! … not for the survey (I didn’t receive it nor did many of my neighbors in spite of regularly getting OPALCO emails) THANK YOU for the opportunity to discuss the nasty nature of push polling (aka “get the results you want”): Read this to discover WHY it’s not legal in some places:
https://www.formpl.us/blog/what-are-push-polls-and-why-are-they-controversial
One comment above would parallel people living below a dam complaining about a survey taken by an upstream hydroelectric utility asking questions about dam safety and reliability, that the utility was trying to scare them. Think of how difficult is is to frame questions relating to risk without a whiff of consequences.
Of course there is the presupposition that any local OPALCO generation would be renewable. Is that still an issue for some? There are many fossil fuel generators in the county, some large (hospital, school, government), and many small. Is there a suggestion that OPALCO should acquire a large capacity fossil fuel generator?
Anyone who can realistically advise how OPALCO can meet anticipated insufficiency or excess draw from BPA in the face of a customer base largely unwilling to conserve (everyone else is the problem), without having to finance supplemental generation should speak up.
I would feel much better about OPALCO’s solar proposals if they just acknowledged that protecting our ground water is a priority for them.
Some might say that we can just use desalination for our water supply, but this uses a lot of energy and the salty concentrate produced negatively impacts our marine waters.
Well said, Bill. I’d add that islanders are actually outpacing the mainland on conservation, specifically in reducing TOTAL energy use. While mainland households still spend about 75% of their energy budget on fossil fuels, OPALCO members have spent 20 years weatherizing, insulating, and switching to high-efficiency electric options—often cutting TOTAL energy consumption by a factor of three.
This efficiency is critical given the looming regional supply crisis. Recent reports estimate Washington faces a 9 GW shortfall in just 4 years, requiring new generation to be built at 25x the current pace. This ProPublica article covers the challenge well: https://www.opb.org/article/2025/05/12/oregon-washington-green-energy-bonneville/
That’s not a fair analogy, Bill. I was a survey research consultant for a number of years, and whatever the issues at stake here, there would have been many other options to frame these questions in a way that achieved a truly objective community perspective — if that was the goal. OPALCO essentially got what they wanted to get.
I think the insulting part of this survey that has people a bit miffed is its frequent use of the logical fallacy known as the “False Dilemma” The questions were worded in a way that gave the respondents the binary choice of radically loosening land use regulations or suffering brownouts and blackouts. Any thinking person knows that reasonable solutions are far more nuanced than this.
When I see this executive summary of the survey, I see it achieved it’s purpose for OPALCO. Mission accomplished, I guess.
I’m wondering if OPALCO’s solar energy strategy has included any efforts to develop a means to invest in high output solar installations in Arizona or New Mexico where energy is fed into a grid from which the San Juan Islands could extract…?…
“This isn’t a failure of technology—it’s a failure of imagination. We believed we could transition to a fully electric, renewable economy without confronting growth, consumption, or planetary limits. The carbon pulse gave us a century of abundance. The challenge now isn’t to recreate it with wind and sun. It’s to grow up as a species—and learn how to live within the boundaries of a planet that no longer tolerates business as usual.” Art Berman
Thank you Jay for the eye-opening OPB article “How the Pacific Northwest’s dream of green energy fell apart.” This being one of several interesting articles that I’ve read on the subject recently, (see excerpts below). Between this and the fact that our current energy secretary just called for a doubling of the global oil output at the Davos Economic forum harkens to one of my not-so-favorite sayings, “I guess it could be worse… and it’s gonna be.”
OPB (Tony Schick / Monica Samayoa) 5/12/25— How the Pacific Northwest’s dream of green energy fell apart
“Oregon and Washington passed aggressive goals to decarbonize their power supply but left it to the Bonneville Power Administration to build the transmission lines needed for wind and solar. The agency hasn’t delivered.” (Years ago I remember Bill Appel warning us about this… this being crucial to the equation. It’s a bit like investing in the cows before you’ve purchased the farm).
“For all their progressive claims, Oregon and Washington trail nearly all other states in adding new sources of renewable energy.“
“Of the 469 large renewable projects that applied to connect to Bonneville’s grid since 2015, only one has reached approval. Those are longer odds than in any other region of the country, the news organizations found. No major grid operator is as stingy as Bonneville in its approach to financing new transmission lines and substations needed to grow the power supply, according to industry groups that represent power producers.”
“Efforts to bypass Bonneville didn’t start until this year, when Oregon and Washington legislators considered bills to create their own state bonding authorities for upgrading the region’s high-voltage network. Both bills died.”
Also, in my reading of the Jan. 16 article in EnergyNow, “Mitsubishi to Buy Texas, Louisiana Shale Gas Assets for $7.53 Billion,” I’m left wondering… ”how many ways can we screw ourselves?”
“JAPANESE INVESTMENT IN US ENERGY The deal is the latest example of a Japanese company investing in the U.S. energy sector after Tokyo positioned gas as an important transition fuel even beyond 2050 and the country prepares for a surge in power demand from data centres driven by the artificial intelligence boom.”
https://energynow.com/2026/01/mitsubishi-to-buy-texas-louisiana-shale-gas-assets-for-7-53-billion/?source=de&wtv=mdjishere@rockisland.com&utm_source=US+EnergyNow+Daily+News&utm_campaign=fdf067eb63-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_8_21_2019_11_45_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_422ec6ddc8-fdf067eb63-475857186
I agree, Matthew, that my analogy lacks the issue of the style in which the questions are posed. Let’s assume that my analogy used OPALCO’s question style. I suggest the the issue of style is a red herring; the reader was invited to address the substance of the question.
Foo, the issues are indeed nuanced, though the consequences aren’t. Again, I ask that if someone knows of a satisfyingly nuanced answer, would they please put it forward? We should assume that OPALCO is asking these questions because it really wants to know. This is not a high school creative writing style test, though it is being treated that way.
Fred, the grid cannot be part of the solution as you perfectly logically suggest, because the grid is the other end of the problem. Generators have capacity, so does the grid, and in tough times, grid capacity is quickly reached. It’s best to think of the grid (here comes another analogy) as a highway. There is an effort underway to “re-string” sections of the grid with heavier wire (effectively widening the highway) and/or raise the voltage on sections of the grid to create a higher transmission capacity. Historically high copper prices are causing the cost of this effort to be astronomical. In both cases there is one result: power, but at higher rates.
The problem isn’t just local where we notice it. it is real, regional and truly complex. OPALCO’s efforts should not be seen as a mind game on its members. Well before the current BPA contract expires, negotiation of the next contract will be a fraught and brutal process, and subject to, let us say, whim at a national level. What is at stake is the safe harbor of what amount to fixed preferential rates for a fixed block of power. The rates will be negotiated, but thr block of power will over time become increasingly inadequate, above which regional market rates will prevail.
Please, no matter what your mood or state of digestion, decide to become part of the solution and not add to OPALCO’s challenges which are also ours. There are many other directions in which our natural and healthy suspicions of motivation can be profitably directed.
From the two recent surveys it looks like the people of Decatur and OPALCO are on a collision course regarding the clearcutting of 8 acres for a solar array.
The OPALCO survey seems designed to push the Decatur project through by pointing out that the bulk of its members approve of renewable energy projects.
OPALCO has stated that it is concerned about climate change and wants to do its part to save the planet. It always strikes me as odd and counter productive to suggest that in order to save the planet, we have to cut down the forest. It is a bit like telling a sick person that we will cut out some of his lungs, so he can breathe better.
The 1.5 MW array would produce1708 MW /hours, about 0.8 % of the current total County use of 200,000 MW/h.
So where will that “extra Decatur energy” go?
Will it be used up to keep the 50% of Orcas housing stock that is empty warm through the winter? Or maybe to heat up hot tubs and jacuzzi’s for 200 vacation rentals? Or maybe to power a couple hundred electric scooters and golf carts? Or maybe to be used for the heating coils under the driveways of the mountaintop trophy homes, so those driveways are not slippery in winter? Bitcoin mining anyone? Or, Oh! some deep fake AI pictures maybe?
You get the gist. That energy will be squandered away and the forest will be gone.
Similarly, we waste about 30% of all our food, produced with a lot of labor and energy and on average transported 1200 miles. And we squander 50 million barrels of oil each day, because we can and we feel like it.
Current use is about 100 million barrels a day and we can easily cut that in half and live the same comfortable lives.
It would give us an extra century to figure out how to live on this beautiful earth without ruining it. That is why we are in this predicament in which blackouts are apparently coming.
Why not start seeing electricity as a precious commodity that is scarce, and will be scarcer in the future. If you know that you will run out, when will you stop squandering and start conserving?
(Data centers use now (2025) about 1% of all energy produced. In 10 years that is projected to be 8.6% of all energy consumed.)
Another question. Will OPALCO mitigate and plant 8 acres of forest somewhere else?
Did OPALCO figure out how much CO2 a fir forest sequesters over it’s lifetime? A fir forest can easily live a 1000 years and over that period produce enormous amounts of oxygen and have immense, hard to quantify, ecological benefits.
Solar panels have to be replaced every 30 years and nobody knows if they will even be available then. (War with China?)
So the best solution for now is that we all shave 0.8% of our electricity consumption (not that hard), and we can save the 8 acres on Decatur.
There is one thing that always seems to be forgotten. It is the AMOUNT of energy you put into an ecosystem that degrades it. It does not matter if that energy was produced by fossil fuel or solar panels. Will the destruction of the Amazon rainforest stop when the bulldozers and chainsaws are battery powered? No, they will continue to destroy the lungs of the planet, so we can eat cheap hamburgers.
The more energy you put into an ecosystem the more it moves in the direction of being less diverse, more vulnerable, less resilient, less stable. Biodiversity is essential for human survival. The only way to heal the planet and stop the decrease in biodiversity (extinction) is through energy descent, in other words the reduction of energy use as a society. Increasing energy use is not the solution to our problems.
I like the idea of a citizens’ committee digging into specific problems. It could offer advice to the County and OPALCO, for example by figuring out a rate structure that really offers incentives to conserve electricity. It could also consider the interrelationship of projected future growth, energy use and ecological impacts. Carbon neutral by 2050?
The best slogan for OPALCO would be: In order to keep the lights on, turn them off!
It’s not a question of “style,” Bill, but the way the issues were framed (see David’s original comment), which obscured the right context needed to provide informed, unbiased responses. Yes, a lot is at stake, but if OPALCO really wanted to know what people think, the survey would have reflected that. If they simply want to make their case more forcefully, there are other ways to do that.
I did the survey out of curiosity, but mostly for the $5 off my bill, since the base rate increase hurts low kwh and low income users the most.
I felt that the survey was manipulative and biased toward the outcome that OPALCO wants, especially given OPALCO’s efforts to justify pushing the County to grant essential utility status in our Comp Plan. If granted, effective Public Process from the membership could be shut out. It would become meaningless. We’d have no recourse at all.
We know that large scale solar is not the answer for SJC, yet continue in our denial that this will solve things – no mention of all the risks of lithium ion batteries -where and how the mining for them takes place – not clean energy. Large scale projects that clear-cut forests go in the complete wrong direction environmentally, as others have said far better than I.
No backup heat for our Urban Growth Area (UGA) clustered housing in a long winter outage in a clear-cut wind tunnel- I’ve said it for years. Who’s addressing that? Anyone?
Massive proliferation of AI data centers in Washington and elsewhere will drive our rates up many times over. Nothing about that in the survey. or what impacts that will have on us. Virginia is already suffering this effect.
Still nothing to incentivize conservation. Still painting anyone with valid concerns as radical oppositionists and killjoys. The County, OPALCO, EWUA, and Eastsound Sewer, all benefit from unlimited unmanaged growth. These same utilities profit off of new hookups. No other or more nuanced solutions are offered. We need to know a lot more about Tidal before investing big bucks into it and what environmental degradations it may cause.
I’m not into the idea of anthropomorphism at the expense of all other life forms and forests /wetlands especially, while promoting runaway growth along with catastrophizing anticipated brownouts and blackouts without connecting the dots. Who will the blackouts hurt the most? UGA residents with no backup heat and no way to stay warm in the event of prolonged cold weather outages. Let’s please at least be honest about this very real concern. and put it on the table. I’m still waiting for this to be addressed with sincerity.
I still haven’t turned on my electric oil-filled heater, even on these colder nights. My apartment is pretty well insulated. Wool garments work well for me. I’m glad I can wear and use natural fiber (cotton and wool clothing, a leather coat for the worst of the winds, and the bedding to stay warm if worse comes to worst. ) Candles are on hand, flashlights too. Some people can’t wear wool.. How will they be warm? Not everyone has even these small luxuries. that I have.