The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is a United States federal government 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).

Operations

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. Its minimum wholesale rate is 3.49 cents per kilowatt-hour; the BPA generated $4.72 billion in operating revenue in 2022.

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 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. 87 percent of the agency's sustained peak capacity (11,680 MW) is generated from hydroelectricity.

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.

Because BPA owns and operates transmission equipment and locations, its workers perform its own vegetation management.

BPA uses helicopters to sling load maintenance workers inspecting and repairing power lines.Head, Elan. "On The Line: Training with BPA and Priority 1 Air Rescue" Vertical, October 28, 2014. Accessed: October 30, 2014.

Facilities and projects

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).

+ Bonneville Power Administration dams Dam River State(s) Maximumcapacity Year opened Owner 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

History

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.

BPA's first industrial sale was to Alcoa in January 1940, to provide 32,500 kilowatts of power. This, and the following 162,500 kilowatt order, led to complaints of the Bonneville Power Act's anti-monopoly clause. The cheap price of aluminum from Alcoa helped aluminum sales grow in the post-World War II market.

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.Northwest Council: "BPA History" www.nwcouncil.org, accessed November 16, 2019

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.

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.Film-Vault www.bpa.gov, accessed November 16, 2019 Included in the collection is the award-winning documentary "River of Power" which covers the Agency's history from its beginning to the present.River of Power (1987) film www.bpa.gov/news, accessed November 16, 2019

The BPA gives its name to the BPA Trail in Federal Way, Washington, a walking trail built beneath power transmission lines.

In 2025, the BPA was impacted by mass firings of federal workers by the Department of Government Efficiency.

Administrators +Administrators of the Bonneville Power Administration Administrator Dates James D. (J. D.) Ross Oct. 10, 1937 – March 14, 1939 Charles Carey Feb. 2 – May 4, 1939 (acting) Frank Banks May 4 – Sept. 15, 1939 (interim / acting) Paul J. Raver 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

Notes

See also BPA Trail, Federal Way Power Marketing Administration Tennessee Valley Authority Western Interconnection

References

Archives Charles F. Luce papers. 1654–2000. 6.13 cubic feet. Brock Adams papers. 1947–1993. 326.64 cubic feet (456 boxes). George H. Barker Collection of Dam Construction Photographs and Ephemera. 1935–1952. 243 photographic prints, 18 newspaper clippings (1 box). Bonneville Power Administration Series, Otto Sternoff Beyer Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

External links

Bonneville Power Administration in the Federal Register Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) documentation: