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).

[[File:Bonneville Power Administration (system map, October 2020).svg|300px|thumb|right|Map of the BPA service area (green) with facilities:

12px Federal dam]]

thumb|right|Logo used to commemorate 75 years of the Bonneville Power Administration.

thumb|right|Construction of high voltage line

thumb|right|High voltage transmission right-of-way cleared for construction

thumb|right|Linemen installing high-voltage insulators

thumb|right|Construction of high voltage pylon

thumb|right|Spanning wires

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.

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.

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).

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.

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. Included in the collection is the award-winning documentary "River of Power" which covers the Agency's history from its beginning to the present.

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

{| class=wikitable

|+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)<br>March 2002 – Feb. 2013

|-

| William K. Drummond

| Jan. 2013 – Jan. 2014

|-

| Elliot Mainzer

| July 2013 – Jan. 2014 (acting)<br>Jan. 2014 – Sept. 2020

|-

| John L. Hairston

| Sept 2020 - Mar. 2021 (acting)<br>Mar. 2021 – present

|}

Notes

See also

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

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 in the Federal Register
  • Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) documentation: