BPA

The only commercial nuclear power plant in the U.S. Pacific Northwest is set for a $700-million upgrade that would add nearly 200 MW of generation capacity. The Columbia Generating Station in Richland, Washington, with a current capacity of 1,207 MW, will undergo an extended power uprate that will be done during the plant’s next three biennial spring refueling outages in 2027, 2029, and 2031.

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) has identified 13 new transmission substation and line projects designed to reinforce the Pacific Northwest’s electric grid. If constructed, these projects would accommodate regional load growth and enable the BPA to add thousands of megawatts of new wind and solar generation, and battery storage to the federal grid. Combined, the […]

VANCOUVER, Washington (March 15, 2021) — Burns & McDonnell, ranked No. 6 in Top 100 Design-Build Firms by Engineering News-Record (ENR), was selected by Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) to provide full-service engineering, architecture, environmental, permitting and construction solutions for a variety of power projects in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. As part of a five-year engineer-procure-construct […]

Continues Partnership with Bonneville Power Administration in Providing Power to Growing Region THE DALLES, Oregon (Aug. 5, 2019) — Burns & McDonnell, an engineering, architecture and construction company, completed design and construction of the new Quenett Creek Substation to meet increasing power demand east of Portland, Oregon, in several areas served by the Bonneville Power […]

Increased power generation from renewable resources such as wind and solar also has created a growing market for energy storage. Generators want to harness that power and have it available when it’s needed, whether or not the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. Rob Allerman, senior director of Power Analytics for Drillinginfo, which […]

Energy supplies are tight in the Pacific Northwest, a region that has been stricken with unseasonably frigid weather and is bracing for deep freezes as a mass of Arctic air descends on the region.    The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a federal power marketer that sells wholesale power from 31 federal dams and one nuclear […]

Overwhelmed by low wholesale power prices and changing customer needs in the Pacific Northwest, the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) on January 30 unveiled a lifeline it hopes will allow it to remain commercially afloat. While the nonprofit federal power marketer headquartered in Portland, Oregon, is part of the Department of Energy, it is self-funding and […]

Biomass combustion should not be an approved compliance method under the Clean Power Plant because burning trees is not carbon neutral, both senators from Massachusetts told the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Friday. In a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) said that treating bioenergy as having […]