Five energy and conservation nonprofits are suing the Bonneville Power Administration over its decision to join a new energy trading market, claiming it will raise electricity and transmission costs in Oregon and across the region.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, alleges that BPA’s move violates the Northwest Power Act and the National Environmental Policy Act and will also weaken energy grid reliability and reduce access to clean energy.
BPA, the Northwest’s largest transmission grid operator, in May announced it would join the Arkansas-based Southwest Power Pool day-ahead market known as “Markets Plus” instead of joining California’s day-ahead market. The Southwest market is smaller with fewer electrical generation resources, experts say.
Prior to that decision, Pacific Northwest governors, lawmakers, utility regulators and renewable energy proponents had pressed the BPA for months to reconsider its plans, which the agency initially announced in March.
The nonprofits involved in the legal challenge are the Oregon Citizens’ Utility Board, a watchdog organization that advocates for utility customers; national environmental group the Sierra Club; the Montana Environmental Information Center, which promotes clean energy; the Idaho Conservation League, a natural landscape conservation group; and the NW Energy Coalition, which promotes affordable energy policies.
The groups, represented by San Francisco-based environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice, want the court to vacate BPA’s decision, require the agency to prepare an environmental impact statement and rescind the financial commitments already made to the Southwest energy market.
The BPA’s spokesperson Nick Quinata declined to comment on the pending litigation. Previously, the agency said the Southwest day-ahead market is superior to the California one because it would allow BPA to remain more independent due to its market design and governance structure.
BPA, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, markets hydropower from 31 federal dams in the Columbia River Basin and supplies a third of the Northwest’s electricity, most of it to publicly owned rural utilities and electric cooperatives. It also owns and operates 15,000 miles – 75% – of the Northwest’s high-voltage transmission lines. Nearly every electric utility in Oregon benefits from either the clean hydroelectricity or the transmission lines controlled by BPA.
BPA’s decision sets the stage for having two energy markets across the West.
The lawsuit says that will likely lead to rising prices and blackouts during periods of high electricity demand because of the complexity of transmitting power across boundaries between different utilities and the agreements required for such transfers.
Oregon’s two largest utilities, investor-owned Portland General Electric and Pacific Power, have both signed agreements to join California’s day-ahead market instead. They, too, have argued…
Read More: BPA faces suit over energy market decision that opponents say would raise
