Bonneville Power Administration
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The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is a U.S. self-financed federal agency which transmits and sells wholesale electricity to Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana. The BPA is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, and is headquartered in Portland, Oregon.
The BPA was created in 1937 to provide the hydroelectricity generated from the Bonneville Dam and, later, the Grand Coulee Dam. As of 2006, it still provides about half the electricity used in the region.
The BPA now markets the electricity from thirty-one 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. The BPA has more than 15,000 miles of electrical lines and 300 substations in the Pacific Northwest and controls approximately 75 percent of the transmission lines in the region. The BPA also maintains connection lines with other power grids in Canada (two 500 kV lines and several lower voltage lines. BPA's power grid also is connected to Path 66 (WAPA) and Path 15 (PG&E) near the California-Oregon border. Both of these paths together have three 500 kV lines that link to other power grids in California and the Pacific Southwest.
The power generated on the 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 take on environmental projects such as salmon replenishment.
