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February 2005 - Columbia River PUD is offering a wind energy option to its 17,500 Oregon-based customers. Under the Choice Energy program, customers can purchase wind energy in 100-kWh increments each month for an extra $2 above standard rates, or a premium of 2¢/kWh. Alternatively, customers can purchase wind energy for 100% of their electricity needs at a lower premium of 1.5¢/kWh. Power for the program is supplied by the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) from the Condon, Klondike and Stateline wind projects located in Eastern Oregon.
News Release - Columbia River PUD launching wind power program
Columbia River Contact: Libby Calnon (503) 366-3264
December 2004 - Five members of the Southern Montana Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative—Fergus Electric, Yellowstone Valley, Bear Tooth Electric, Mid Yellowstone, and Tongue River—are offering their approximately 60,000 customers a green power option at a price premium of 1.05¢/kWh. Under the program, most of the co-ops are offering the power in 100-kWh blocks, however, at least one of the co-ops allows its customers to purchase green power for all their electricity usage. The programs are supplied by Southern Montana with purchases of the Bonneville Power Administration's Environmentally Preferred Power product, which is a blend of new and existing wind and low-impact hydro.
Southern Montana Electric G&T Contact: Tim Gregori (406) 294-9527
October 2004 - The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) will supply the U.S. Army with green power to meet about 5% of the electricity needs of Fort Lewis in Washington State. Under an agreement with Tacoma Power, Fort Lewis will buy about 12 million kWh of wind energy certificates from BPA sourced from wind farms located in eastern Washington and Oregon. Fort Lewis serves more than 25,000 soldiers and civilian workers and uses about the same amount of electricity as a city the size of Olympia, WA.
News Release - Army buys "green power" to light Fort Lewis
News Article - Army buys wind-driven 'green power' for Ft. Lewis
News Article - Army buys wind power for Fort Lewis
BPA Contact: Deb Malin (503) 230-5701
March 2004 - The Bonneville Power Administration announced that Fairchild Air Force Base, located outside of Spokane, WA, is buying renewable energy to meet the entire electricity load of the military base. Under the agreement, Fairchild is purchasing 65.7 million kWh of green power from wind (99%) and small hydro (1%) projects in the region. The bulk of the purchase is in the form of renewable energy certificates, which represent the environmental attributes of the renewable energy generation, with the remainder made up of delivered energy.
News Release - Fairchild Air Force Base Rides The Wind
BPA Contacts: Ed Mosey or Mike Hansen (503) 230-5131
July 2003 - Lower Valley Energy, an electric cooperative serving about 13,500 members in western Wyoming and southeastern Idaho, recently unveiled a new green power option for its residential and business customers. Residential customers can sign up to purchase 300-kWh blocks of green power for $5 each month, which represents a rate premium of 1.67¢/kWh, while commercial customers can participate by purchasing 3,000-kWh blocks for $50 each month. Customers are free to sign up for as many blocks as they desire. To supply the program, the utility is purchasing wind energy under an agreement with the Bonneville Power Administration.
Lower Valley Contacts: Chad Jensen (307) 733-2446; Joyce Roff
September 2002 - Pacific County PUD, which serves about 15,000 residents of Pacific County, Washington, offers a Green Power program to its residential and business customers. Customer participants can purchase 100-kWh blocks of green power for $1.05 per month, or 1.05¢/kWh. There is no limit to the amount of green power that customers can purchase.
To supply the program, Pacific County is purchasing the Bonneville Power Administration's (BPA) Environmentally Preferred Power product. A portion of the wholesale green power payment goes to the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to support the development of new renewable energy facilities in the Pacific Northwest.
Pacific County PUD Contact: Jim Dolan, 360-942-2411
June 2002 - Energy Northwest announced the completion of a new 38.7-kW photovoltaic (PV) system that will supply a portion of the power for green pricing programs offered by Clark Public Utilities and Puget Sound Energy. Under the agreement, Energy Northwest will own and operate the system, Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) will add the power to its system mix, and Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) will market "green tags" representing the environmental attributes of the solar output to utilities and other customers.
News Release - Largest Photovoltaic Solar Power Facility in the Northwest Now in Operation (PDF 32 KB) Download Acrobat Reader
Energy Northwest Contact: Gary Miller (509) 377-8728
July 2001 - In response to a request for proposals issued earlier this year, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) has selected proposals for 7 wind projects in Washington and Oregon with a combined capacity of 830 MW. The agency plans to enter into predevelopment agreements with the project developers, but will assess the environmental impacts of the projects before signing final power purchase contracts. The average first-year cost of the wind power is expected to be less than $30 per megawatt-hour.
BPA announced earlier that it is pursuing wind projects, in part, because they are "highly desirable to buyers of green power." BPA currently supplies green power blends of wind and small hydro to about 10 wholesale customers, primarily municipal and rural electric cooperatives in the Pacific Northwest.
News Release - Secretary Abraham Announces Major Wind Power Initiative to Aid Western Energy Shortage - No longer online at energy.gov
News Release - BPA solicits new wind power projects
DOE Media Contact: Jill Schroeder (202) 586-4940
May 2001 - The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF) signed an agreement to promote renewable power development through a new "green tags" program. Green tags, also called green certificates, represent the environmental attributes of power generated from renewable energy facilities. Under the agreement, BPA will sell the power from its renewable facilities at market rates, while BEF will sell green tags to cover the above-market costs of generating the renewable power. BEF will use the sales revenues to expand a $15 million fund earmarked for renewable resource development in the Pacific Northwest.
News Release - BPA, BEF Ink "Green Tag" Deal - No longer online at bpa.gov
BPA Contact: John Lebens (503) 230-3965
BEF Contact: Angus Duncan (503) 248-1905
February 2001 - The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is seeking bids for more than 1,000 MW of new wind energy—its largest wind power purchase ever—to help address a regional power shortage. The agency issued a request for proposals (RFP) seeking power from large projects, particularly those greater than 40 MW in size. BPA expects the bids to be cost competitive and to be priced significantly below the average price bid in California's recent power supply auction.
BPA is also looking to wind because wind projects "are relatively easy to site and expand, have low environmental impacts (including no carbon emissions) and are highly desirable to buyers of "green" power." BPA currently supplies green power blends of small hydro and wind power to about 10 wholesale customers, primarily municipal and rural electric cooperatives in the Pacific Northwest.
BPA already buys or is considering the purchase of nearly 300 megawatts of wind energy from three existing projects in Wyoming and four projects under development in Oregon, Washington and Montana.
RFP Announcement - Call for for new large-scale wind power project proposals
News Release - BPA solicits new wind power projects
News Article - Bonneville seeks wind power to help ease power shortage
News Article - BPA officials planning huge wind-power buy
BPA Contact: George Darr, (503) 230-4386
January 2001 - PacifiCorp Power Marketing, Inc. (PPM), a non-regulated subsidiary of ScottishPower, and FPL Energy, LLC, a subsidiary of FPL Group, announced an agreement to develop and market power from a 300-MW wind plant along the Washington-Oregon border that will be the world's largest single wind energy development. FPL Energy will build, own and operate the new wind farm and PPM will purchase and market the entire output of the project over a 25-year period.
Through proposed agreements with Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and other utilities, PPM will use hydropower resources to "shape" the wind energy into firm green energy products and market them throughout the western region. The power will be moved over transmission lines owned by BPA and PacifiCorp. PPM is also in discussions with BPA to purchase up to 40% of the output from the project to serve BPA customers.
Both Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber and Washington Governor Gary Locke welcomed the Stateline Wind Generating Project as an environmentally sound solution to meet growing electricity needs in the region.
News Release - World's Largest Wind Plant to Energize the West
News Article - Wind farm to be built near Tri-Cities will be largest ever - No longer online at seattletimes.nwsource.com
May 2000 - Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) announced a 20-year agreement to purchase the power output from 16.8 MW of new wind turbines that SeaWest WindPower, Inc. will develop at the Foote Creek Rim site in Wyoming. The power will be used to supply BPA's "environmentally preferred" power offerings and will effectively double the amount of new renewable resources that BPA includes in its green power products.
BPA currently supplies 10 customers, primarily municipal and rural electric cooperatives, with more than 25 average MW of green power, consisting of a blend of small hydro and wind power. With this new agreement, BPA will increase the percentage of wind energy in the blend. In addition, BPA recently announced two new green power offerings—a 100% new renewables product, which will be a mix of geothermal, solar, and wind resources, and a 100% wind energy product.
News Release - BPA, SeaWest Bring More Renewable Energy to the Northwest
News Release - The power behind PGE's wind program: BPA
BPA Contact: Dennis Oster (503) 230-3370
SeaWest Contact: Dave Roberts (619) 908-3440
May 1999 - According to Con.Web, the Pacific Northwest Energy Conservation and Renewable Energy Newsletter, Orcas Power & Light, an electric cooperative serving Washington's San Juan Islands, has agreed to buy 0.5 MW of green power from the Bonneville Power Administration. The green power product is a mix of small hydro and wind energy. Participating customers can choose to purchase the green power in blocks of 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1,000 kWh at a price premium of 3.5¢/kWh above the standard residential rate of 5.1¢/kWh.
The Bonneville Environmental Foundation assisted in negotiating the deal. Orcas is the third Northwest utility to buy green power through the Foundation, joining Emerald PUD and Snohomish County PUD (see January 1999 for related story).
News Release - Bonneville Environmental Foundation Notches Another Green Power Sale
January 1999 - Snohomish County Public Utility District #1 in Washington became the second utility to announce that it will purchase certified green power from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). Snohomish has agreed to purchase 10 MW of power over two years. In July 1998, the Emerald People's Utility District near Eugene, Oregon agreed to a one year contract to purchase 3 MW of green power from BPA.
The green power will be supplied from small hydro (90%) and wind resources (10%) that have been officially endorsed by local environmental groups as "environmentally preferred." The Bonneville Environmental Foundation, an independent nonprofit foundation established by BPA and three environmental groups, will receive 60% of the above-market green power premium paid to BPA to support renewable energy projects in the Pacific Northwest.
News Release - Bonneville Environmental Foundation receives $1 million- No longer online bpa.gov
News Release - Wind, Water to Light Homes, Benefit Environment - No longer online bpa.gov
July 1998 - The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) has teamed up with three environmental groups to form the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. The groups have agreed to endorse power generation from "select, environmentally preferred resources," which BPA will market at a price premium. Initially, two hydropower projects will provide 20 average megawatts of power to the program. Power from new wind and geothermal projects will also go into the pool. Retired U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield will be the foundation's president.
News Release - Unique partnership will support fish and wildlife, new renewable energy resources
May 1997 - The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) has signed an agreement with the Environmental Resources Trust (ERT), an independent, non-profit organization founded with the help of the Environmental Defense Fund, to broker BPA power products that have environmental benefits, including power generated from federal hydro facilities as a result of fish recovery operations, power generated from renewable projects, and power from instream flow improvements enabled by ERT water purchases. Acting as a broker for its clients and BPA, ERT will offer this power to buyers whose alternative sources are more expensive or who are willing to pay more for environmentally beneficial energy. Proceeds from the sales will be invested in fish and wildlife and other on-the-ground environmental projects.
Dennis Oster, BPA account executive in charge of the program, notes that BPA is committed to sell at least 15 MW by September 30, 1997. The agreement would lead to a total of 200 MW or more each year.
March 1997 - Bonneville Power Administration is marketing a green power product to the public utility districts it serves. The product was developed to support two wind and two geothermal projects. Thus far, a contract has been signed with Salem Electric Cooperative to provide an average of 7 MW of green energy at 35 mill¢/kWh.
BPA Contact: Crystal Ball (503) 230-5133
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