Innovation and economic development
Avista’s clean energy focus is not limited to the generation supply mix. Avista has pursued and been awarded federal and state grants through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and Clean Energy Fund grants in a strategic and deliberate manner. These grants haven’t just been about Avista’s work. They have elevated and raised the bar for what can be accomplished when communities work together. For the last decade, Avista has been setting the stage for the future:
- Partnering with Washington State University in the nation’s largest smart grid demonstration project to create the first “smart community” in the Pacific Northwest.
- Piloting the largest-capacity vanadium-flow battery system in North America and Europe, when it went into service, to further explore ways to store and integrate intermittent renewable energy into the grid.
- Building a shared energy economy with several partners in Spokane’s University District to leverage energy assets for multiple purposes, creating a microgrid that facilitates the sharing of energy among buildings.
- Serving as a founding partner of Urbanova, Spokane’s Smart City living laboratory that is testing smart city concepts with the goal to foster healthier communities, safer neighborhoods, smarter infrastructure, stronger economies and a more sustainable future.
- Reimagining how we better utilize and develop our cities, and through a project called Catalyst, leading development to drive something bigger – to create space for growth and innovation that will use energy efficiently and drive business, education and the overall vitality of the region.
- Creating an Ecodistrict in Spokane that will allow us 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.
To learn more about these and additional innovation and economic development efforts, please visit our ESG/Corporate Responsibility webpage.