washington business
Of Note
Passages: Tom Fritz, AWB Board Vice Chair and Chair-Elect
Tom Fritz, AWB’s vice chair and incoming chair of
the board, died July 13. He was 63.
Fritz retired last year as CEO of Inland Northwest
Health Services, an organization that he transformed
into a regional force in health care services during
his 16-year tenure. He was also a national leader in
his field and served on numerous boards, including
Greater Spokane Incorporated, the Spokane Area
Economic Development Council and Spokane Workforce Development Council. He also
served as chair of the American Hospital Association Governing Council Section for Rehabilitation, Long-Term Care & Long-Term Acute Care Hospitals.
He served his country as a Marine during the Vietnam War as part of a search-and-rescue
helicopter squadron. He was devoted to his family and enjoyed traveling with his wife, Anne.
“Tom will be missed by the many who knew him well and by those that may not have
known him well, but benefited from all the good he did in his community and statewide,”
said AWB President Kris Johnson. “He had a strong vision for AWB. Our opportunity now is
to see that it’s carried out.”
He is survived by his wife, Anne, and son, Alex.
Avista Tests ‘Game-Changing’ Wind, Solar Storage Battery
Gov. Jay Inslee compared the significance of the
innovative wind and solar energy storage battery
work tested by Spokane-based Avista Utilities
earlier this year with the 1930s construction of
the Grand Coulee Dam, North America’s largest
hydropower producer.
Washington state holds enormous potential
for wind and solar development, but until now
utilities have not had a viable, cost-effective way
to store the energy for later use. As a result, utilities have had to build backup electrical generation — often tapping carbon-emitting coal plants
or gas-fired turbines, according to the Spokesman-Review.
But a spark of innovation — and years of research — could be a game changer in the world
of wind and solar energy storage and usage.
Avista’s new one-megawatt battery is the largest Vanadium Redox Flow battery system to
date in North America and Europe. The $7 million Pullman test project is being funded by a
grant from the Washington State Department of Commerce’s Clean Energy Fund and Avista
matching funds.
Avista has located the battery storage system on the campus of Schweitzer Engineering
Laboratory’s manufacturing facility in Pullman, which will allow the batteries to be tested in a
real-world application for back-up power. Additionally, Avista will be drawing on the batteries
to assess how they hold up to use during peak energy demand times and power outage scenarios
now through the end of 2016.
12 association of washington business
PNNL Plays Key Role in
Environmentally Sustainable
Hydropower
In Washington state, more than 70
percent of the energy produced
comes from hydroelectric dams. The
clean, renewable energy resources
have caught the attention of President Barack Obama, who set a lofty
goal to double the nation’s hydropower by 2030.
To achieve this, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
is leading research that aims both
to improve hydroelectric generation
and protect the environment, including one of the state’s coveted natural
resources: fish.
In a column published in the TriCity Herald, Steve Ashby, PNNL’s
newly-appointed director, outlined
the role the lab takes in collaboration
with the state to ensure the energy
and ecosystems work in harmony.
Partnering with the state Department of Ecology (DOE), PNNL’s
research is focused on dams used to
hold back water that is systematically
released through turbines to generate electricity. Specifically, PNNL is
helping power companies and the
DOE understand hazards that dams
create for fish as they migrate from
the Columbia River Basin to the
Pacific Ocean by injecting fish with
uniquely coded transmitters that
send a signal every 0.4 seconds.
The data, collected by receivers along the river and in bodies of
water, tell the story of each tagged
fish and offer an analysis of the
stresses placed on each fish as they
journey to the ocean. This information will be used to improve dam
operations and provide insights into
how to redesign turbines to replace
the aging ones in the Columbia Basin
over the next 50 years.