Associated Power Reaches Deal Company To Supply Electricity To Columbia Aluminum Starting Oct. 1
A new Spokane com pany will be the first to break the Bonneville Power Administration’s monopoly on supplying power to Northwest aluminum smelters.
Associated Power Services Inc. announced Tuesday a one-year contract with Columbia Aluminum Corp. that calls for delivery of 15 megawatts of electricity to the Goldendale, Wash., facility starting Oct. 1.
Although previous deals between other smelters and power suppliers have been announced, none kicks in before next spring.
Also, the APSI contract commits Columbia to the purchase, whereas some of the other transactions are just options, said Steve Kern, APSI director of power services.
APSI, only a few months old, trades about 100 megawatts of power in the region, he said. The company buys the electricity from a variety of sources, then sells it on a daily or monthly basis to utilities and other customers.
The company also does about 65 megawatts of business in the Northeast where, Kern said, the company routes natural gas to underutilized generating plants and subsequently sells the additional energy.
APSI is a subsidiary of Houston-based Panhandle Eastern Corp., operator of the largest pipeline system in the country. Another subsidiary, Associated Gas Services Inc., supplies gas to the Goldendale smelter, and Kern said that was helpful in securing the electricity deal.
He said APSI is working on contracts with other smelters in the region which are moving away from 100 percent reliance on the BPA.
Last week, the smelters informed the federal power-marketing agency how much energy they will purchase after Oct. 1, 1996, under proposed new contracts.
BPA must decide today whether the commitments that have been made merit signing of those contracts.
Paul Spies, director of operations at Columbia Aluminum, said he would not discuss the company’s response nor the potential savings from the APSI contract.
Columbia uses about 300 megawatts of electricity, he said.
, DataTimes