Earlier this month, the Lewis County Public Utility District Board of Commissioners approved the next step of the process in negotiating a new contract with the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which will dictate how the utility purchases power for the foreseeable future.
After discussing the decision at length for many months and allowing PUD staff to make preparations for selecting “block with shaping” at the beginning of July, the board of commissioners officially signed off on the selection during its meeting on Tuesday, July 16. “Block with shaping” is a BPA power product that allows a utility to purchase pre-planned amounts of power from the nearby power production company to fit its yearly demand.
The new contract will take effect in 2028. It means the local utility will purchase set amounts of power from BPA each year and arrange to have more of that power available during high demand seasons such as the middle of winter. The product selection is a 20-year agreement with one chance to switch between products.
A few key factors took center stage during the discussion around the new contract and ultimately led to the selection of the “block with shaping” option from the BPA. Possibly the single most influential development during the decision was the upcoming expiration of a separate agreement with BPA that will allow the PUD more flexibility in its control of a small power generating dam on the Cowlitz River south of U.S. Highway 12 between Randle and Glenoma.
The expiration of the agreement will bring the power generated by the Cowlitz Falls Hydroelectric Project back under the local utility’s control.
The facility stands to play a major role in the future of the Lewis County PUD. The block product leaves room to supplement the power Lewis County PUD gets from BPA with other sources, meaning the dam could come in handy when the county faces higher demands. As power becomes increasingly scarce and the region looks to impose minimum power requirements for utilities, the dam could also prove valuable in creating profit for the utility by selling the power generated to neighboring utilities.
Utility staff, such as Lewis County PUD General Manager David Plotz, have made it clear they expect a new resource adequacy program will create a more robust power market where utilities with excess or independent power generation can make money selling power on the open market.
The new resource adequacy project that may create a competitive market is called the Western Resource Adequacy Program (WRAP). The program is created by the Western Power Pool, which is a group of utilities up and down the West Coast that share power.
WRAP will impose minimum power amounts for utilities in an attempt to make sure localities have the power they need as power capacity in the west becomes scarce, with many carbon-based production facilities being replaced by less polluting, but less reliable, resources, such as wind and solar.
Some utilities may struggle to meet those minimums and be obligated to go searching on the power market to meet the demands.
Perhaps it's those developments that are causing the Cowlitz Falls Dam to attract attention from outside the utility, as U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, visited the power producing facility for a tour Friday afternoon, Aug. 8, and spoke with utility staff and commissioners. (Look for an article focused on her visit in the Tuesday edition of The Chronicle.)
Cowlitz Falls Dam
The Cowlitz Falls Hydroelectric Project, commonly referred to as the Cowlitz Falls Dam, is a hydroelectric facility first constructed in the early 1990s that began generating power in 1994. The structure is 140 feet tall and 700 feet wide, spanning the width of the Cowlitz River at one of its narrower points.
According to the Lewis County PUD, which owns and operates the dam, the 70-megawatt hydroelectric facility produces roughly 260,000 megawatts of energy each year, equal to about a third of the county’s needs.
The dam sits just below the confluence of the Cispus and Cowlitz rivers, and the water reservoir held by the dam covers roughly 700 acres, turning the intersection of the two rivers into a man-made lake known as Scanewa Lake.
It's one of three hydroelectric facilities on the Cowlitz River and situated the furthest up stream. It sits just above Riffe Lake; another man-made lake and dam reservoir created by the state's tallest hydroelectric facility, the Mossyrock Dam. That facility is owned by Tacoma Public Utilities. The utility also owns the third dam on the river, the Mayfield Dam.
While the Cowlitz Falls facility is a Lewis County PUD holding, it was developed in partnership with the BPA. The northwest power giant paid for the dam's construction and continues to pay for its operational costs in exchange for the power it produces.
As part of the agreement, BPA is entitled to the power and liable for operational costs through 2032. Since Lewis County PUD purchases its power from the BPA, the power generated by the dam is part of the pool of power sold to local ratepayers.
That deal, however, will soon come to an end at roughly the 30-year mark. This spring, the BPA signaled to the Lewis County PUD that it would not seek to extend the arrangement in which it bankrolls the facility in exchange for the power it produces.
That means that both the power production, as well as the costs associated, will come back to the Lewis County PUD, which already staffs the facility and manages the day-to-day operations.
While the discussion on the dam begins now, the agreement with BPA doesn't actually expire until 2032, and even then, the BPA will maintain some leverage until 2066 as the contract allows for the regional power giant’s continued operational involvement until then. This is still significant, however, as the dam’s power will come into local control just four years into the new power purchasing contract between Lewis County PUD and the BPA.
The dam coming back into the fold of the Lewis County PUD appears to be a windfall for the local public utility for a number of reasons, even if it means the utility will begin paying for the facility out of its own pocket.
Not only does the facility generate roughly a third of the county’s power, which helps make the county more self-reliant in the future, its possible excess power could be sold to other utilities in the future and generate a new source of income for the utility.
