News

While producing the 2021 Power Plan, Council power system analysts kept bumping up against limitations to their old computer models’ ability to do long-term load forecasting among other essential tasks in power planning. To address this issue, in 2023 staff contracted with Itron, a company offering energy forecasting software tools, to upgrade the Council’s long-term load forecasting.

Last September, quagga mussel larvae were detected in the Snake River near Twin Falls, Idaho during routine monitoring conducted by the Idaho State Department of Agriculture, the first time they had been found in the basin. Keeping them out of the basin will be a year-round, full-time effort.

Members of the federal negotiating team presented to the Council on the recently released agreement in principle to modernize the Columbia River Treaty.

The Council has published its 2029 Resource Adequacy Assessment. The Council’s annual adequacy assessment is a five-year test of the power plan’s resource strategy to ensure that it will provide an adequate future power supply. This report summarizes the aggregate regional power supply’s adequacy for the 2029 operating year (October 2028 through September 2029).

The Willamette Bi-Op Habitat Restoration Project and John Day Watershed Restoration Project are prime examples of local coordination towards improving fish and wildlife habitat.

In a wide-ranging conversation, BPA Administrator John Hairston presented to the Council during its July meeting on topics including a new record high for energy demand that BPA reached earlier this month, and a new agreement in principle on amendments to the Columbia River Treaty between the U.S. and Canada.

June's Council meeting in Helena featured presentations by Montana electric co-operatives, Bonneville Power Administration, and Power Division staff.

The Council approved the Shoshone-Bannock Tribe’s Waterwheel Hatchery Program Step 1 review and a recommendation to Bonneville to fund non-recurring maintenance for fish screens in FY2025.

The U.S. government is modifying hydropower operations on the lower Snake and lower Columbia rivers, providing more hours of spill in the spring and curtailing spill operations in August. In preparation for an upcoming adequacy assessment, Council staff incorporated these changes in modeling to understand the impact to power generation.

Power demand forecasts are showing significant increases in the Pacific Northwest over the next five years, and the Council is closely monitoring the region’s progress on key targets from its 2021 Power Plan and analyzing whether that will ensure that the power supply is keeping pace.