Analysts expect hydropower surplus this year
PORTLAND - The court-ordered spill of water from Columbia River dams to aid juvenile salmon migration this summer will cost about $60 million in lost power sales, but the Northwest still will have surplus electricity this year, energy officials said Tuesday.
The heavy winter snowpack in the mountains should provide the region a potential surplus of 2,400 megawatts for 2006 in the annual forecast presented to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.
But a ruling by U.S. District Judge James Redden will cut into that surplus.
Redden ordered the spills this past December - after he had ruled earlier that the Bush administration's plan for operating the federally owned hydroelectric dams in the Columbia River Basin jeopardized the survival of threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead.
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Still, one of the chief analysts for the council said the region should have power to spare this summer.
"Even with the court-ordered spill, we still have plenty of surplus,'' John Fazio told the eight members of the council, which sets energy and conservation policy for Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.
The surplus could help ease Northwest and California energy prices by allowing utilities to buy cheap hydropower and decrease reliance on natural gas-fired generating plants that have been hit by skyrocketing gas prices.
The forecast came just days after the Northwest congressional delegation won a round in its battle against a possible Bonneville Power Administration rate hike resulting from the proposed Bush administration budget.
The BPA is the federal agency that markets power from the hydro system and supplies nearly half of the electricity in the region.
The Bush administration has proposed limits on the way the BPA manages its loans and debt, possibly boosting its rates by about 7 percent in 2008, according to a council analysis.
But Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said that he - along with Sens. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Patty Murray, D-Wash. - have won approval of a budget amendment that could help them block the changes.
Wyden said the amendment would help save hundreds of millions of dollars resulting from debt management changes that he said ``amounts to government loan sharking by the administration.''
The region is still recovering from the Western energy crisis of 2001, when the second-driest year on record since 1929 helped push energy prices through the roof, along with market manipulation by the now-bankrupt Enron Corp.
This article is republished courtesy of the Eugene Register-Guard:
Analysts expect hydropower surplus this year
