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White Book Reflects Uncertainty by Staff BPA Journal - March 2004

BPA expects to have an energy surplus this year and deficits of fewer than 100 average megawatts through 2008 -- under one set of assumptions. But uncertainties about BPA loads after 2006 make for a wide range of possible outcomes. Uncertainties include actual BPA power deliveries to the region's investor-owned utilities and the potential level of BPA sales to direct-service industries. About 800 megawatts of BPA's existing power obligations to publicly owned Northwest utilities have no signed contracts after 2006.

Given these uncertainties, BPA's latest White Book - the Pacific Northwest Loads and Resources Study - shows four scenarios to portray possible outcomes for BPA's load-resource balance over the next two decades. The White Book is BPA's official projection of long-term loads and resources. It shows the region as a whole with energy surplus through 2011 but with a possible deficit in 2012 of 157 average megawatts and more than 670 aMW by 2013, based on existing power plants. The principal uncertainty for the region is what proportion of the new generating capacity built in the region in the last few years is dedicated to serving Northwest load.