News

In a wide-ranging conversation with the Council this month, Bonneville Power Administration Administrator Elliot Mainzer said the ongoing transformation of the electricity industry, characterized by a steady transition away from fossil fuel-fired power plants to greater reliance on renewable energy

At its May power committee meeting, the Council reviewed regional employment and economic output trends and their impact on electricity sales. The overarching picture is of a regional economy that, over time, continues to produce more with less energy.

While nearly all of the West is experiencing abnormally dry conditions, with drought emergencies declared in California and three of the four Northwest states, the water supply in most of the Columbia River Basin is close enough to normal that

Scientists estimate that fish-eating birds consume 35 percent of the juvenile Upper Columbia River spring Chinook salmon, an endangered species, as they migrate downriver to the Pacific Ocean each spring.

An avalanche of spring Chinook hit Bonneville Dam in late April and early May, then tapered off into the middle of the month. Bonneville, 146 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, is the first place on the Columbia River where

The 2015 Efficiency Exchange Conference held in Portland last month was an opportunity for people working to develop energy efficiency in the Northwest to share information and network.

At its May meeting, the Council reviewed the preliminary results from its early scenario analysis modeling. The Council's regional portfolio model explores how different resource strategies play out against a range of future conditions. It's used to help understand the

In revising the Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program in 2014, the Council committed to define and develop a long-term maintenance plan and process to ensure that past investments in projects that implement the program remain properly functioning and

A preliminary assessment of the region's power supply shows that we're likely to have adequate resources until 2020. Unless economic growth increases dramatically, there's only a 5 percent chance of not meeting demand, the Council's maximum threshold for a shortfall.