What is the Western Area Power Administration?

From North Dakota to California, Western Area Power Administration serves a variety of utilities across its 15-state service. We market and deliver reliable, low-cost hydroelectric power to preference customers at competitive prices.

Created in 1977, Western currently markets and transmits power throughout a 1.3 million-square-miles service territory to more than 600 customers, including rural electric cooperatives, municipalities, public utility districts, Federal and state agencies, and irrigation districts. These wholesale power customers, in turn, provide service to millions of retail consumers in Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

Western markets and transmits more than 36 billion kilowatthours of electricity each year--enough to serve nearly 4 million households or 10 million people--on nearly 17,000 miles (26,967 kilometers) of transmission lines. We market electricity generated by powerplants operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the International Boundary Water Commission (U.S. Section).

Western's services include:

• Operating and maintaining high-voltage transmission lines and associated power system facilities.
• Selling and scheduling power to meet customer needs, helping customers plan for future power resources and overseeing security of the power system.
• Providing training and assistance to customers developing Integrated Resource Plans as required by the Energy Policy Act of 1992.
• Securing low-cost resources and transmission alternatives to assure the long-term power supply
  As deregulation and competition increase in the utility industry, Western continues to seek ways to cut costs and offer new types of services. We are customer-focused, streamlined for process efficiency, organized to create opportunities for technical leadership and structured for decentralized decision-making.

Western has nearly 50 duty locations in 15 states. Its Corporate Services Office is in Lakewood, Colo. Its four customer service regions are Upper Great Plains in Billings, Mont.; Desert Southwest in Phoenix, Ariz.; Rocky Mountain in Loveland, Colo.; and Sierra Nevada in Folsom, Calif. Western also operates the Colorado River Storage Project Customer Service Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. See the Contacts page for a map and contact details.