Hydro power’s reliability and flexibility supports PenLight’s clean power system. Powered by water, dams do not produce emissions like fossil-fuel burning resources, allowing PenLight’s fuel mix to be extremely green at 98% hydro.
Hydro power’s reliability and flexibility supports PenLight’s clean power system. Powered by water, dams do not produce emissions like fossil-fuel burning resources, allowing PenLight’s fuel mix to be extremely green at 98% hydro.
Replacing even 1,000 average megawatts of hydropower with a carbon dioxide-emitting natural gas plant would bring more than 4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the Northwest each year. Altogether, Northwest dams produce 12,000 megawatts of firm hydropower, which avoids about 50 million metric tons of carbon emissions each year. To have a renewable and clean resource to generate electricity is an extreme benefit of living in such a water-prominent part of the country. Not only is the energy source replenished naturally because of the water cycle, it is one of the least expensive sources of energy.