EWEB faces a choice between two good options, but it's a challenging choice nonetheless.

The choice is which Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) product EWEB should choose as we negotiate a new two-decade power supply contract with the federal agency that supplies roughly 80% of EWEB's power.

After rigorous analysis, EWEB narrowed the choice to one of two products: load following or block with shaping. Load following is a full-service product in which BPA will meet all of EWEB's current load, requirements, including our peak needs, but minus the contributions of most of EWEB's owned generating resources. Block with shaping is more of a do-it-yourself product in which EWEB takes a more active role in balancing load with resources. Load following presents a more dramatic shift from the way EWEB has historically operated, while block with shaping lies closer to the status quo.

In this episode of Frankly Speaking, EWEB General Manager Frank Lawson describes how he is leaning towards selecting the load following product – an initial leaning that he presented to EWEB's Board of Commissioners this week. This product will maximize EWEB's access to BPA's low-cost hydropower resources. 

Both products require that EWEB manage the output of our resources, such as Carmen-Smith. And another decision point lies ahead: In 2026 EWEB will decide if we want BPA to cover our load growth or if we want to do that ourselves.

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