Funding

How is Western funded?

Western receives funding from a variety of sources, including annual Congressional appropriations, customer-advanced funding and alternative financing. Alternative financing includes bill crediting, which credits a customer's bill when the customer makes a payment on Western's behalf to a Western purchase power supplier, and net billing, which nets a customer's bill after Western acquires energy or wheeling from that customer. Western also has the ability to use some power sale receipts to fund purchase power and wheeling. Each year, electric power sales allow Western to repay the U.S. Treasury for all of the annual operating costs related to power production and delivery, plus the Federal investment in the power and transmission facilities, as well as certain costs assigned to power for repayment, such as aid to irrigation development.