Bonneville Power Administration proposes 13 new projects to expand the regional grid

The BPA owns 75% of the transmission lines in the Northwest. It has proposed 13 new projects to upgrade and expand the region’s power grid to accommodate growing energy needs. Oregon and other Northwest states have ambitious carbon emissions reduction targets that they can’t hit unless the power grid expands. Those goals will be impossible to meet without much more energy generated from renewables or other alternatives to fossil fuels. CEO John Hairston joins us with all the details.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. If we have any hope of a more stable and livable climate in the decades to come, we have to decarbonize our lives. From powering our cars to warming or cooling our homes, we have to wean ourselves from carbon-emitting power and switch to non-carbon-emitting sources of electricity. And that doesn’t include our digital tools, the data centers, and AI algorithms that are immense and growing electricity hogs. In other words, we don’t just need cleaner electricity. We need a lot more of it overall. And we need a transmission grid that can handle that increase, something we do not currently have.

In the Northwest, no entity is more responsible for helping us get to this electrified future than the Bonneville Power Administration. The federal entity, which is part of the US. Department of Energy, sells power from 31 hydroelectric dams to utilities and municipalities. It also operates about 75% of the region’s high voltage transmission lines. It now has plans to spend $5 billion in the coming years on nearly two dozen projects to beef up and modernize that grid. John Hairston is the CEO of the Bonneville Power Administration. He joins us now. It’s great to have you on Think Out Loud.

John Hairston: Thank you, Dave. Great to be here, big fan of the show.

Miller: I appreciate that, big fan of electricity. How much more electricity are we likely to need in the Northwest in the coming decades?

Hairston: Well, that’s a great question and that’s one of the biggest questions that we tackle in the Northwest. If you look at what we’ve been seeing, in terms of our load forecasts, right now BPAs load is around 8,000 megawatts and can peak at around 11,000 megawatts, as we saw when it was really cold this past January.

Projecting to 2045, I would say we expect a load of around 9,000 megawatts. However, we have a couple of projections that we look at. We have a more aggressive load growth that’s informed by higher levels of load growth that we experienced in recent years. In a medium load growth forecast that we’ve seen, over a longer period of time … but under a medium forecast, currently, projections show a fairly slow climb to around 11,000 megawatts by 2045. Under the high scenario, we see a fairly rapid climb to around 11,000 megawatts by 2030. So we get there quicker.

The other point that I referenced to share is that the Pacific Northwest is also looking at regional demand for electricity that’s projected to increase from about 23,000, or about 23,700 average megawatts in 2024, to around 31,000 average megawatts in 2033. And that’s a forecast that’s been provided by PNUCC. So all kinds of gauges point to rapid growth and in demand for electricity.

Miller: Let’s say that enough solar, wind or wave projects, geothermal, whatever, come online to satisfy that need and that they are connected to the grid. Those are big ifs, but just as a hypothetical, could the existing transmission system handle all of that new electricity?

Hairston: That’s a great question and I’ll just share what my dad used to always tell me. If “if” was a fifth, we’d all be drunk. But yeah, I think when you look at what we’re trying to integrate into the system, we have to expand the system. And that’s why these projects are so critical for us. Under our first evolving grid tranche of projects, which was announced in 2023, committed us to about $2 billion in expansion projects – that was really to accommodate regional load growth and enable the connection of new wind, solar battery storage.

Over the last year, we’ve moved those projects through various stages of scoping and design. And many of those projects are in Oregon, including some new rebuilt substations. One of these substations is this new Longhorn Substation in Boardman, which is under construction and looking to be energized in December. We have to expand the system. We don’t have a system that can accommodate all of the proposed resource integration requests that we have. And so it’s going to be absolutely necessary.

Just to share some of the things that we’ve seen, in terms of demand … what we’ve seen for a generation interconnection, we proposed some reforms to our tariff. The reforms or those changes allow us to, more efficiently, process requests into the system to connect resources to the grid, these renewable resources. But we’re now in the process of determining which requests will be eligible to participate in our first ever interconnection cluster study, which we expect to start ...

Miller: I’ve got to interrupt you because my guess is I’m not the only one who doesn’t totally understand what you’re saying. So what is generation interconnection?

Hairston: That’s when generators respond to requests for proposals to meet load. And so these generators get into, what we call, our generator interconnection queue. So they get in line for us to prepare studies, to give them estimates of not only the cost of getting integrated into the queue, but also what’s necessary in terms of the build, the technology, etcetera.

So we’ve seen exponential growth in those requests. We never imagined that queue would continue to grow at the rate it has. As of today, we have over 272 projects totaling 186 gigawatts eligible for our upcoming study, to determine whether some of those resources can be moved into the next stage for interconnection.

Miller: Meaning, let’s say there’s a developer who says we want to put in this big solar farm in South-Central Washington or Eastern Oregon. And we want to connect to the grid so we can actually sell this power. They need to get your authorization before that can happen?

Hairston: Yeah, if they’re connecting into the federal system, we perform these studies, like I said, cluster studies which look at a number of different requests and determine what the cost will be, where they need to be integrated, and then what the supporting technology is. [For example] if there needs to be substation upgrades or new line reconductoring. All of those things factor into whether or not, what the cost will be for interconnection.

And I will say this. While we’ve seen this exponential growth, the reason why we wanted to reform the process is that, typically now, we see a really low percentage of actual requests come to fruition … meaning that folks will get into the queue, they will say that they have an intent to build these resources and interconnect into the system. But generally, when it comes time to really put up the money and move forward with it, we see a number of those entities drop to the side.

So for us, being able to manage all of these numbers has been really challenging and we’re looking for new efficient ways to do it. And as I said, we have actually reformed our tariff to become more efficient. We’ve looked at more of a first-ready, first-serve approach, and requiring certain criteria, like site control and certain financial criteria that will weed out, I think, the pretenders from the real contenders.

Miller: Well, let’s turn to one of the issues that we talked about on this show a few months ago with OPB Reporter Tony Schick. He had reported on the big challenges the Yakama Nation has been facing in getting a solar project that they actually have gotten a fair amount of federal support for, to get it up and running. As I understand, it costs so much and it takes so long to be approved to connect to the grid, the pieces that you’ve been talking about, that even though they have been given a big federal grant, that grant could expire before they can actually move forward.

It really seems like one piece of the federal government is trying to work with urgency. But other parts of this system, this federal bureaucratic system, are getting in the way. What would it take to unstick this?

Hairston: And that’s a really great question and I will say this … We’ve been working with the Yakama Nation to make sure that their request meets all the criteria that is required, as we make those requests and enter into the queue. So we work with all of our customers to make sure that they’re successful in understanding what they have to submit to be viable in our interconnection queue. So I really appreciate the efforts that we’re making with our tribal partners and seeing them move into this area of wanting to build renewable energy. Because that’s what the future is about, moving to a green future through this energy transition.

Now, what it takes? It takes a collective effort. Like I said, we’re doing our part in reforming our queue and the process, shaving as much time as we can, but also requiring folks to come up with the things that will demonstrate that they are, like I said, contenders or bona fide projects. But at the same time, we need to be able to work with the utilities that are going out with the request for proposals and these developers are responding to, to help us understand who they would see as the likely candidates to move forward. So we can begin to reduce those numbers and be able to facilitate moving through, and doing the studies, and really getting to the point where we’re getting steel in the ground. We’re doing things that we need to interconnect.

Miller: What do you mean by a “pretender”? I mean, why would a company go through the process of filling out all this paperwork and seeming to try to get in line for a major energy development if they’re not serious?

Hairston: Yeah, it’s largely the ability to speculate. I think a large portion of some of these folks will go in on a speculative basis and they get into the queue. So that means that they have that spot. And if it’s upfront in the queue, it’s preferable and it gives them the opportunity to have Bonneville perform these studies. And really, at the end of the day, perform what is essentially an economic analysis about the viability of what they’re proposing to meet that request for proposal. It doesn’t really cost a lot, or hadn’t in the past. Our reforms are requiring more things for these entities to bring up front and we have seen it work a little bit.

We have some reduction in entities coming forward and speculating. But at the same time, we have seen so much growth and response to that growth or that demand that we. Like I said earlier on, we’ve seen close to 186 gigawatts of potential eligible entities coming into our transition study.

Miller: The Department of Energy’s transmission needs study found that under an aggressive decarbonisation scenario, the Northwest and surrounding Mountain States would need a 56% increase in our grid’s capacity. When you look at the two sets of projects combined – the one from last year at $2 billion and the one from this year at $3 billion – do they achieve that when you combine them?

Hairston: No, no. We’re gonna have to do a lot more investment. And part of the challenge is making sure that we’re working together collectively, within the region, to do more long-term transmission planning. One of the things that I really feel good about is, this past year, we stood up an entity called WestTEC, the Western Transmission Expansion Coalition. The Northwest, in particular, had not done long-term transmission planning. We’ve always looked at about 10-year planning horizons.

WestTEC is gonna allow us to push that out to 20 year horizons. And what that allows for is for entities to come together and look at what these needs are on a more long-term basis, and then be able to plan the types of projects that will help meet that need. And, in turn, there’s a larger or a longer runway for folks to begin to get the funding and the approval for these projects to meet that demand.

So I’m pretty excited about what this WestTEC process will yield. But the most important thing is, for the first time, we’ve got entities within the entire Western interconnect that are coming together to do the type of long-term planning that will meet the needs that you’ve just talked about.

Miller: We just have three minutes left. But I want to turn to the question of how long this can take. The Boardman to Hemingway Line, to me, is a scary example. Planning for that started in 2007. Permitting is still going on. Is there a way to streamline these projects without short changing environmental impact statements, or right-of-way authorizations, or Clean Water Act review – all of the aspects of federal law that are there for a reason but can slow things down?

Hairston: Yeah, I mean, there’s opportunities to address the permitting. You can also remember supply chain, availability of inventory also factors into that. But these are big, hard things to do. And we have to be up to the task of looking at all the opportunities and all the elements that are out there for us to refine and make this process more efficient. You’re right, some of these projects take a long time.

One of the things that I’ve been pretty encouraged about is, under our evolving grid projects, we’ve had some already completed. For example, our Keeler-Horizon #2 line, which is one of our projects that we announced in 2023, has already been completed. And that’s important because that’s in the Portland-Hillsboro area. And it’s something that, I think, is gonna bring some benefit to Portland General Electric and other utilities in the area.

Now, timelines … we can look at some of the projects that we have, some will be completed between, say, 2025 and the late-2030s. It just depends on all of the elements you talk about, about permitting, accessibility, the inventory, the supply chain, and also most importantly, people. It takes people to get this done. And as an industry, we’ve been challenged with the type of hiring we need to see these projects through. We’re seeing improvements there, but really, we need to create partnerships that will bring us the workforce of the future to help get these projects done.

Miller: John Hairston, thanks very much for joining us.

Hairston: All right, thank you, Dave. Appreciate it.

Miller: John Hairston is the CEO of the Bonneville Power Administration. He joined us to talk about the plans now to spend about $5 billion in the coming years on nearly two dozen projects to beef up and modernize the electrical grid in the Northwest.

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