Western celebrates its 30-year anniversary and looks ahead to the future

More than 30 years ago on Dec. 21, 1977, high gas prices and an emphasis on conservation led Congress to create the Department of Energy, including Western Area Power Administration—a new agency to sell and deliver hydropower across 15 central and western states. Three decades later, our nation is still concerned with the same issues that resulted in the birth of Western, making our mission of delivering clean, renewable energy all the more crucial to meeting today's energy demands.

An expanded mission
Yet in 30 years, we’ve also seen our mission expand. Beginning with the Path 15 Upgrade Project, we have entered into another era of transmission construction to ensure our nation’s bulk interconnected power grid is capable of delivering enough power to meet increasing load growth. We are also seeing our role in renewable energy expand to include green tag purchases on behalf of other agencies and utilities. We also manage incredible numbers of interconnection requests for wind generation. Finally, we are building upon our relationships with our tribal customers, who have increased tenfold since the Energy Planning and Management Program gave tribes the opportunity to receive the benefits of Federal hydropower.

Looking ahead
In three decades, five administrators have led our agency through numerous changes and defining moments in our history. As we continue forward into the next 30 years as an agency, a new senior management team will define our strategic focus and mission. As our nation’s population and energy needs increase, we no doubt will continue to have a role in helping to ensure a stable, clean source of energy supply. Our employees will emphasize innovation as we forge ahead in an era of rapid technological advances, new legislation and industry regulations and shrinking appropriations. We know that the decisions we make today need to keep our long-term future in mind as we look ahead to the next 30 years.  

30 years of memories
Hear in their own words what past and present employees have had to say about the major projects and programs that have defined us an agency. In our booklet, “Looking back and looking ahead—perspectives on 30 years of change at Western,” you can read first-hand how employees experienced and helped shape our agency. It was published in 2008.

You can also read a narrative of Western’s first 25 years in “Serving the West: Western Area Power Administration’s First 25 years as a Power Marketing Agency.”