Батыс Аймақтық Энергиялық Әкімшілігі: АҚШ-тың гидроэнергиясын жеткізу және тарату жүйесі

As one of the four power marketing administrations within the U. S. Department of Energy, the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA)'s role is to market wholesale hydropower generated at 57 hydroelectric federal dams operated by the Bureau of Reclamation, United States Army Corps of Engineers and the International Boundary and Water Commission. WAPA delivers this power through a more than 17,000 circuit mile, high voltage power transmission system to more than 700 preference power customers across the West. Those customers, in turn, provide retail electric service to more than 40 million consumers. WAPA is headquartered in the Denver, Colorado suburb of Lakewood, Colorado. WAPA’s service territory spans 15 central and western states, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.

WAPA was created in Section 302 of the Department of Energy Organization Act signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, Aug. 4, 1977. Under the statute, WAPA assumed power marketing responsibilities and ownership, operation and maintenance of the federal transmission system from the Bureau of Reclamation. Reclamation retained responsibility for other uses of the multi purpose water projects, including dam and powerplant construction, operation and maintenance.

WAPA owns, operates and maintains a more than 17,000 circuit mile, high voltage transmission system that represents more than 10 percent of the transmission lines in the Western Electricity Coordinating Council area. The transmission capacity is first reserved to deliver the contractually obligated hydropower to customers. Any other utility may purchase remaining capacity on WAPA’s system on the Open Access, Same Time Information System. WAPA’s transmission system includes power lines, substations, power transformers, communication towers, circuit breakers, interconnections and direct current ties. WAPA personnel both maintain this system and operate balancing authorities, ensuring energy supply matches demand 24 hours a day. WAPA also offers ancillary services to customers to ensure reliable grid operations. WAPA built several parts of the important Path 15 corridor that connects power grids in the Southwest and Pacific Northwest (the rest was privately built by PG&E). Recently, WAPA helped remedy a transmission bottleneck near Los Banos, California. That bottleneck was one of the reasons for the California electricity crisis in 2000 01. Another important transmission corridor WAPA built was Path 66, paralleling Path 15. WAPA also owns and operates many electric power substations like the Mead substation to distribute power within the region. WAPA settled with FERC and NERC for the 2011 blackout.

Various laws, including the Reclamation Project Act of 1939, require WAPA to give preference to certain types of non profit organizations seeking to purchase Federal power. Preference customers include state and Federal agencies, water and irrigation districts, municipalities, public utility districts, Native American tribes and rural electric cooperatives. A law may also designate specific entities that must receive preference in power sales from a particular powerplant or project. WAPA has some discretion regarding which preference entities should receive power and has allocated power to wildlife refuges, universities and mass transit systems. Sometimes, legislation specifies a geographic area that receives priority to Federal hydropower. WAPA also places geographic limits on the marketing of power, which define the location of eligible customers. Marketing area boundaries are usually based on past marketing practices, the location of the powerplants generating the electricity being sold, state boundary lines or river drainages.

Section 402 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 amended the Hoover Power Plant Act of 1984 to give WAPA authority to borrow up to $3.25 billion from the U. S. Treasury to pursue transmission projects that promote the delivery of renewable generation into the electric transmission grid. To implement that authority, WAPA created the Transmission Infrastructure Program (TIP). Two projects have been completed under this authority, and several others are in the development process.