Agency overview | |
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Formed | August 20, 1937 |
Jurisdiction | U.S. government |
Headquarters | Portland, Oregon, U.S. |
Agency executive |
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Parent agency | U.S. Department of Energy |
Website | www |
The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is an American federal agency operating in the Pacific Northwest. BPA was created by an act of Congress in 1937 to market electric power from the Bonneville Dam located on the Columbia River and to construct facilities necessary to transmit that power. Congress has since designated Bonneville to be the marketing agent for power from all of the federally owned hydroelectric projects in the Pacific Northwest. Bonneville is one of four regional Federal power marketing agencies within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
The power generated on BPA's grid is sold to public utilities, private utilities, and industry on the grid. The excess is sold to other grids in Canada, California and other regions. Because BPA is a public entity, it does not make a profit on power sales or from providing transmission services. BPA also coordinates with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to regulate flow of water in the Columbia River and to carry out environmental projects such as salmon restoration.
Although BPA is part of the DOE, it is self-funded and covers its costs by selling its products and services at cost. The BPA provides about 28% of the electricity used in the region. BPA transmits and sells wholesale electricity in eight western states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. [1] Its minimum wholesale rate is 3.49 cents per kilowatt-hour; the BPA generated $4.72 billion in operating revenue in 2022. [1]
BPA now markets the electricity from thirty-one federal hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River and its tributaries, as well as from the Columbia Generating Station, a nuclear plant located on the Hanford Site in eastern Washington. BPA has more than 15,000 circuit miles (24,140 circuit km) of electrical lines and 261 substations in the Pacific Northwest and controls approximately 75 percent of the high-voltage (230 kV and higher) transmission capacity in the region. [1] 87 percent of the agency's sustained peak capacity (11,680 MW) is generated from hydroelectricity. [1]
BPA also maintains connection lines with other power grids. It connects to the California high-voltage transmission system by Path 66, which consists of the two 500 kV AC lines of the Pacific AC Intertie, plus a third 500 kV AC line of the California-Oregon Transmission Project (COTP) (managed by the Balancing Authority of Northern California). Together these three lines are operated as the California-Oregon Intertie (COI) (managed by the California Independent System Operator CAISO). An additional DC ±500 kV line, the Pacific DC Intertie, links BPA's grid at the Celilo Converter Station near The Dalles, Oregon to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) grid 800 miles (1,300 km) away at the Sylmar Converter Station in Los Angeles.
The Northern Intertie crosses the Canada–US border in two locations at Blaine, Washington and Nelway, British Columbia and connects to two BC Hydro AC 500 kV lines and several lower voltage lines. [2]
Because BPA owns and operates transmission equipment and locations, its workers perform its own vegetation management. [3]
BPA uses helicopters to sling load maintenance workers inspecting and repairing power lines. [4]
The BPA is the designated marketer for 31 hydroelectric dams and the Columbia Generating Station a nuclear power plant at the Hanford Site. The dams are owned and operated by either the Army Corps of Engineers (21 dams) or the Bureau of Reclamation (10 dams), and have a maximum combined capacity of 22 GW. [1]
Dam | River | State(s) | Maximum capacity | Year opened | Owner |
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Albeni Falls Dam | Pend Oreille | Idaho | 49 MW | 1955 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Anderson Ranch Dam | Boise | Idaho | 40 MW | 1950 | Bureau of Reclamation |
Big Cliff Dam | North Santiam | Oregon | 23 MW | 1953 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Black Canyon Diversion Dam | Payette | Idaho | 10 MW | 1925 | Bureau of Reclamation |
Boise River Diversion Dam | Boise | Idaho | 3 MW | 1912 | Bureau of Reclamation |
Bonneville Dam | Columbia | Oregon, Washington | 1,216 MW | 1938 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Chandler Dam | Yakima | Washington | 12 MW | 1956 | Bureau of Reclamation |
Chief Joseph Dam | Columbia | Washington | 2,614 MW | 1958 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Cougar Dam | McKenzie | Oregon | 28 MW | 1963 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Detroit Dam | North Santiam | Oregon | 126 MW | 1953 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Dexter Dam | Middle Fork Willamette | Oregon | 17 MW | 1954 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Dworshak Dam | Clearwater | Idaho | 460 MW | 1973 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Foster Dam | South Santiam | Oregon | 23 MW | 1967 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Grand Coulee Dam | Columbia | Washington | 7,049 MW | 1942 | Bureau of Reclamation |
Green Peter Dam | South Santiam | Oregon | 92 MW | 1967 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Green Springs Dam | Emigrant Creek | Oregon | 17 MW | 1960 | Bureau of Reclamation |
Hills Creek Dam | Middle Fork Willamette | Oregon | 34 MW | 1962 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Hungry Horse Dam | Flathead | Montana | 428 MW | 1953 | Bureau of Reclamation |
Ice Harbor Dam | Snake | Washington | 695 MW | 1962 | Army Corps of Engineers |
John Day Dam | Columbia | Oregon, Washington | 2,484 MW | 1971 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Libby Dam | Kootenai | Montana | 605 MW | 1975 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Little Goose Dam | Snake | Washington | 930 MW | 1970 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Lookout Point Dam | Middle Fork Willamette | Oregon | 138 MW | 1953 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Lost Creek Dam | Rogue | Oregon | 56 MW | 1977 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Lower Granite Dam | Snake | Washington | 930 MW | 1975 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Lower Monumental Dam | Snake | Washington | 930 MW | 1969 | Army Corps of Engineers |
McNary Dam | Columbia | Oregon, Washington | 1,127 MW | 1952 | Army Corps of Engineers |
Minidoka Dam | Snake | Idaho | 28 MW | 1909 | Bureau of Reclamation |
Palisades Dam | Snake | Idaho | 176 MW | 1958 | Bureau of Reclamation |
Roza Dam | Yakima | Washington | 13 MW | 1958 | Bureau of Reclamation |
The Dalles Dam | Columbia | Oregon, Washington | 2,048 MW | 1957 | Army Corps of Engineers |
The Bonneville Project, named for the then-new Bonneville Dam, was established by an act of Congress that was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 20, 1936. The federal agency was created to market electricity from the Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams based on the model of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). It would provide a flat rate for customer utilities and use revenue from these sales to pay off the bonds used by the federal government to finance the construction of dams in the Pacific Northwest. The agency's name was changed to the Bonneville Power Administration in 1940. Attempts to replace the BPA with a Columbia Valley Authority that more closely resembled the TVA were made in the 1940s and 1950s, but were ultimately unsuccessful. [5] [6]
BPA's first industrial sale was to Alcoa in January 1940, to provide 32,500 kilowatts of power. [7] This, and the following 162,500 kilowatt order, led to complaints of the Bonneville Power Act's anti-monopoly clause. [7] The cheap price of aluminum from Alcoa helped aluminum sales grow in the post-World War II market. [7]
Overly optimistic estimates of future electricity consumption by BPA in the 1960s led the agency to guarantee some bonds for the disastrous Washington Public Power Supply System nuclear power project. Out of five nuclear power plants started (WNP-1 and WNP-4, WNP-3 and WNP-5), only WNP-2 was completed. BPA is still making payments on three of the abandoned plants. In 2003, BPA's debt for the nuclear project totaled $6.2 billion. [8]
In 1973, the BPA commissioned TRW Inc. to write software for the PDP-10 mainframe computer that managed the agency's power grid; Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote the software for the monitoring system, which remained in operation until its replacement in 2013. [9] [10]
In 2014, the BPA Library discovered a collection of old films made by the agency and began posting digital versions of them on the agency's website. [11] Included in the collection is the award-winning documentary "River of Power" which covers the Agency's history from its beginning to the present. [12]
The BPA gives its name to the BPA Trail in Federal Way, Washington, a walking trail built beneath power transmission lines.
Administrator [a] | Dates [b] |
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James D. (J. D.) Ross [c] | Oct. 10, 1937 – March 14, 1939 |
Charles Carey | Feb. 2 – May 4, 1939 (acting) [d] |
Frank Banks | May 4 – Sept. 15, 1939 (interim / acting) |
Paul J. Raver [e] | Sept. 16, 1939 – Jan. 14, 1954 |
William A. Pearl | Jan. 15, 1954 – Feb. 14, 1961 |
Charles F. Luce | Feb. 15, 1961 – Aug. 30, 1966 |
David S. Black | Aug. 31, 1966 – Sept. 7, 1967 |
H.R. Richmond | Sept. 8, 1967 – Oct. 19, 1967 (acting) |
Donald P. Hodel | Dec. 1, 1972 – Dec. 19, 1977 |
S. Sterling Munro, Jr. | Jan. 1978 – Feb. 1981 |
Earl Gjelde | Feb. – May 1981 (acting) |
Peter T. Johnson | May 1981 – July 1986 |
James J. Jura | July 1986 – Aug. 1991 |
Jack Robertson | Aug. – Oct. 1991 (acting) |
Randall W. Hardy | Oct. 1991 – Sept. 1997 |
Jack Robertson | Oct. 1997 – June 1998 (acting) |
Judith A. Johansen | June 1998 – Sept. 2000 |
Stephen J. Wright | Sept. 2000 – Feb. 2002 (acting) March 2002 – Feb. 2013 |
William K. Drummond | Jan. 2013 – Jan. 2014 |
Elliot Mainzer | July 2013 – Jan. 2014 (acting) Jan. 2014 – Sept. 2020 |
John L. Hairston | Sept 2020 - Mar. 2021 (acting) Mar. 2021 – present |
Bonneville Lock and Dam consists of several run-of-the-river dam structures that together complete a span of the Columbia River between the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington at River Mile 146.1. The dam is located 40 miles (64 km) east of Portland, Oregon, in the Columbia River Gorge. The primary functions of Bonneville Lock and Dam are electrical power generation and river navigation. The dam was built and is managed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. At the time of its construction in the 1930s it was the largest water impoundment project of its type in the nation, able to withstand flooding on an unprecedented scale. Electrical power generated at Bonneville is distributed by the Bonneville Power Administration. Bonneville Dam is named for Army Capt. Benjamin Bonneville, an early explorer credited with charting much of the Oregon Trail. The Bonneville Dam Historic District was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1987.
"Roll On, Columbia, Roll On" is an American folk song written in 1941 by American folk singer Woody Guthrie, who popularized the song through his own recording of it. The song glamorized the harnessing of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. The 11 hydroelectric dams built on the American stretch of the Columbia helped farms and industry, but their construction also permanently altered the character of the river.
The Dalles Lock and Dam is a concrete-gravity run-of-the-river dam spanning the Columbia River, two miles (3.2 km) east of the city of The Dalles, Oregon, United States. It joins Wasco County, Oregon, with Klickitat County, Washington, 192 miles (309 km) upriver from the mouth of the Columbia near Astoria, Oregon. The closest towns on the Washington side are Dallesport and Wishram.
The Pacific DC Intertie is an electric power transmission line that transmits electricity from the Pacific Northwest to the Los Angeles area using high voltage direct current (HVDC). The line capacity is 3.1 gigawatts, which is enough to serve two to three million Los Angeles households and represents almost half of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) electrical system's peak capacity.
Cushman Dam No. 1 is a hydroelectric dam on the North Fork of the Skokomish River in Mason County, Washington, which in derogation of the natural and treaty rights of the Native inhabitants impounded and enlarged the formerly natural Lake Cushman, leading to damage claims in excess of $5 billion and an eventual settlement agreement with the Skokomish tribe that terminates the right to operate the dam(s) after 2048. It was built by Tacoma City Light in 1924–1926. Tacoma's demand for electricity grew rapidly after World War I. Tacoma City Light's Nisqually River Hydroelectric Project, built in 1912, could not meet the demand and the utility decided to build a new hydroelectric project on the North Fork Skokomish River. The dam and powerhouse first began to deliver electricity on February 12, 1926.
As one of the four power marketing administrations within the U.S. Department of Energy, the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA)'s role is to market wholesale hydropower generated at 57 hydroelectric federal dams operated by the Bureau of Reclamation, United States Army Corps of Engineers and the International Boundary and Water Commission. WAPA delivers this power through a more than 17,000-circuit-mile, high-voltage power transmission system to more than 700 preference power customers across the West. Those customers, in turn, provide retail electric service to more than 40 million consumers. WAPA is headquartered in the Denver, Colorado suburb of Lakewood, Colorado.
Columbia Generating Station is a nuclear commercial energy facility located on the Hanford Site, 10 miles (16 km) north of Richland, Washington. It is owned and operated by Energy Northwest, a Washington state, not-for-profit joint operating agency. Licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1983, Columbia first produced electricity in May 1984, and entered commercial operation in December 1984.
Energy Northwest is a public power joint operating agency in the northwest United States, formed in 1957 by Washington state law to produce at-cost power for Northwest utilities. Headquartered in the Tri-Cities at Richland, Washington, the WPPSS became commonly known as "Whoops!", due to over-commitment to nuclear power in the 1970s which brought about financial collapse and the second largest municipal bond default in U.S. history. WPPSS was renamed Energy Northwest in November 1998, and agency membership includes 28 public power utilities, including 23 of the state's 29 public utility districts.
Path 15 is an 84-mile (135 km) portion of the north–south power transmission corridor in California, U.S. It forms a part of the Pacific AC Intertie and the California-Oregon Transmission Project. Path 15 is part of The Western Electricity Coordinating Council's links of electrical intertie paths in the western United States.
California Oregon Intertie (COI), identified as Path 66 by Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC), is a corridor of three roughly parallel 500 kV alternating current power lines connecting the electric grids of Oregon and California. Their combined power transmission capacity is 4800 MW.
Path 26 is a set of three Southern California Edison (SCE) 500 kV power lines, located primarily in Los Angeles County, and extending into Kern and Ventura counties, all in California. Path 26 is part of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council's links of electrical intertie paths in the western United States. The Path 26 lines are located in: the San Joaquin Valley of the southern Central Valley; the Tehachapi Mountains and other central Transverse Ranges; and the Antelope Valley section of the Mojave Desert.
The Celilo Converter Station, built in 1970 and owned and operated by the Bonneville Power Administration, is the northern terminus of the Pacific DC Intertie, near The Dalles, Oregon, in the United States.
Biglow Canyon Wind Farm is an electricity generating wind farm facility in Sherman County, Oregon, United States. It is owned by Portland, Oregon-based Portland General Electric and began operations in 2007. With the completion of phase 3 of the project it has a generating capacity of 450 megawatts. It is located roughly five miles (8 km) northeast of Wasco, Oregon, and about ten miles (16 km) southeast of Rufus, Oregon. Biglow Canyon Wind Farm covers 25,000 acres (10,000 ha) in the Columbia River Gorge.
Tieton Dam is an earth and concrete type dam on the Tieton River in Yakima County, in the U.S. state of Washington. The dam began operation in 1925. Its reservoir, Rimrock Lake, has a total capacity of 203,600 acre-feet (0.2511 km3) with a normal operating capacity of 198,000 acre-feet (0.244 km3) to provides water for agricultural irrigation. This dam is a component of the Yakima Project. Tieton Dam also produces electricity for Burbank Water and Power and Glendale Water and Power, near Los Angeles. The Southern California Public Power Agency installed two 7 megawatt generators in a project started in 2010. The power is transmitted over the Pacific DC Intertie that runs from Celilo, Oregon to Sylmar, California. Upstream from the dam, the river is impounded by Clear Creek Dam, another element of the Yakima Project. About 8 miles (13 km) downstream from the dam, the Tieton River is tapped for the Tieton Main Canal.
The Snohomish County Public Utility District is a public utility agency providing power to over 367,000 customers in Snohomish County and on Camano Island, Washington. It provides water service to about 23,000 customers in the northeast section of the Snohomish County.
The 1996 Western North America blackouts were two widespread power outages that occurred across Western Canada, the Western United States, and Northwest Mexico on July 2 and August 10, 1996. They were spread 6 weeks apart and were thought to be similarly caused by excess demand during a hot summer.
The Portland General Electric Company Station "L" Group in southeast Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon was a cluster of six industrial buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built between 1910 and 1929 by Portland General Electric (PGE), it was added to the register in 1985. In 1986, PGE gave Station L and 18.5 acres (7.5 ha) of land to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). The Station L turbine is a central feature of OMSI's Turbine Hall. The complex was listed on the National Register in 1985, and was delisted in 2020.
The Juan de Fuca Cable Project is a proposed 550 MW, 150 kV high-voltage direct current (HVDC) submarine power cable connection running 19 miles (31 km) under the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Port Angeles, Washington, and Victoria, British Columbia. The project's final environmental impact statement was completed in October 2007, and a presidential permit issued in June 2008.
Electricity in the Puget Sound region is a significant factor in people's lives, an enabler for the modern economy, and has a unique relationship with the region's environment.
The Covington Electrical Substation, Bonneville Power Administration is an electrical substation in Covington, Washington. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 29, 2018.
This article incorporates public domain material from BPA Fast Facts - Fiscal Year 2006 (PDF). United States Government. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 27, 2009.