The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) has identified 13 new transmission substation and line projects worth approximately $3 billion to strengthen the electric grid of Pacific Northwest.
“If constructed, these projects would accommodate regional load growth and enable BPA to add thousands of megawatts of new wind and solar generation and battery storage to the federal grid,” BPA said.
Each project will go through preliminary engineering and environmental review for a final construction decision.
“BPA continues to answer the call to meet the region's transmission needs driven by electrification, clean energy goals and growing energy demand," said BPA Administrator and CEO John Hairston. “This work would not be possible without the $10 billion increase in Treasury borrowing authority championed by the Northwest Congressional delegation."
Congress included the $10 billion increase in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, increasing BPA's borrowing authority to $17.7 billion with the U.S. Treasury.
The new transmission projects resulted from BPA's Transmission Service Request Study and Expansion Process 2023 cluster study. While the proposed projects are in the early stages of development, they will undergo scoping and move to preliminary engineering by 2025.
Currently, BPA is working on more than 20 proposed expansion projects with an estimated cost of approximately $5 billion. For FY 2025, BPA has approved a budget of $590 million as compared to a budget of $377 million in FY 2024 for grid reinforcements to maintain reliability and preserve existing transmission lines, substations and other equipment.
“These projects advance our efforts to provide reliable service to our customers and keep pace with requests for transmission service," said Jeff Cook, vice president, Transmission Service Planning and Asset Management. “We expect these projects will enable transmission service for network and point-to-point needs yet to be studied.
