Electricity: Currency Of 21st Century

Utilities scrambling to position themselves in an increasingly competitive market can’t overlook reliability, says the interim administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration.

Jack Robertson, who was in the agency’s Spokane office Tuesday, called electricity the currency of the 21st Century.

Common household appliances and high-tech machinery alike demand an uninterrupted flow of electrons, Robertson said.

“There is a very low tolerance in people for the reliability of electricity to be broken,” he said.

Bonneville sells 40 percent of the power consumed in the Northwest, and transmits 75 percent.

Once the unchallenged low-cost supplier, the agency has lost customers in recent years because fish-restoration expenditures and Washington Public Power Supply System debt pushed its prices higher just as other suppliers entered the market with cheap power from gas-fired turbines.

But Robertson said signs indicate the tide is turning.

Customers are showing greater interest in buying Bonneville power when their existing contracts expire in 2001, he said.

An excellent water year in the Columbia River basin increased generator output, Robertson said, and prices were relatively good.

As a result, an optimistic projection Bonneville would be able to add $100 million to its reserves in the last fiscal year was eclipsed by $65 million.

A repeat, Robertson said, would give the agency just about enough money to cover potential budget shortfalls if river flows retreat to historic lows.

Adequate reserves also help reassure customers that rate hikes will not be necessary, he said.

Robertson, who has headed Bonneville since predecessor Randy Hardy resigned in July, said agency officials continue cost-cutting efforts they hope will get power prices down to two cents per kilowatt-hour by year 2000.

That should keep Bonneville competitive until WPPSS debt starts to come off the books in 2006, allowing the agency to gradually roll back rates, he said.

, DataTimes