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A monthly employee publication of the Bonneville Power Administration
April 1998
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A monthly employee publication of the Bonneville Power Administration
April 1998
Issues ’98 is coming!
Relax. It has nothing to do with the upcoming election season. Issues ’98 is a public involvement process BPA will hold in May to inform interested regional parties about a host of issues and to take comments from those parties.
The issues the agency will take into Issues ’98 include federal power subscription, stranded cost recovery, fair and open transmission access, implementation of the Cost Review recommendations, future fish and wildlife funding requirements and BPA’s handling of its sizeable future financial obligations.
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“BPA is currently involved in addressing these issues through a number of separate processes,” says Helen Goodwin, policy strategist in Corporate Planning. “In May we will look at all of the issues at one time in order to construct a snapshot of the key planning assumptions BPA is considering for its next rate period, 2002-2006.” “Issues ’98 is an opportunity for us to provide focus on the issues currently in play in the region and then to get input from the region as to how others see them,” says Pam Marshall, vice president for Corporate Planning. The process is intended to bring BPA and interested parties to a common understanding of the big issues facing the agency. Decisions will come later. “In most cases, these issues will go on to be resolved in other, separate processes, including the 1998 power rate case,” Marshall says. Fundamentally, Issues ’98 is about the planning assumptions BPA will take into its power rate case for subscription. “We’re going into the process with what we’re calling draft planning assumptions,” Marshall says. “The process forces BPA and the region to look at issues holistically.” BPA hopes that, after comments are received and carefully considered, its revised planning assumptions will appeal to a broad cross-section of its customers and constituents. |
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Most issues that influence these assumptions won’t reach final resolution in May and final decisions will be made in the separate processes those issues came from. An exception may be decision making on some of the Cost Review recommendations. BPA may propose, and seek comment on, a plan for implementing certain Cost Review recommendations in the Issues ’98 process. This would lead to June decisions on those matters. For other issues, what goes into Issues ’98 in May as planning assumptions will come out of Issues ’98 in June as revised planning assumptions.
“Up until the May process starts, all of the individual processes that have been going on since the Comprehensive Review was completed in December 1996 will move along on their own self-imposed timelines,” Goodwin says. “But, by this fall, BPA plans to go forward with the power rate case initial proposal that will show a comprehensive picture of these issues and what they mean for the 2002 – 2006 period.”
Issues ’98 will feature a variety of small meetings around the region. Account executives and constituent account executives will hold individual or small group meetings during the month, and the agency will hold separate government-to-government consultations with the tribes. A large public meeting will be held in Tacoma, Wash., in late May.
Besides seeking to show the region a snapshot of where we are with each issue, Goodwin says, “The other thing we’re trying to do is describe program spending levels before the rate case. If we’re going to complete the rate case in 90 days, a lot of this groundwork needs to be covered up front.”
BPA plans to begin signing subscription contracts in July. Before customers will sign contracts, they will want to know the prices they will pay for the 2002-2006 period. The
Issues ’98 process is a step to help get there. When all the costs come together, BPA will have an estimated price. Of course, this won’t be exactly the same price and level of detail that the region will see in BPA’s actual rate case, but it will give customers a rough idea so they can provide their feedback.
The region, in general, also has a stake in the outcome of Issues ’98. Everyone in the region wants to know that BPA will manage and recover its costs, have a high probability of making its payments to the U.S. Treasury and meet its fish and wildlife funding commitments.
Steve Hickok has formed a subgroup of the Executive Committee that is, he says, “on standby for moving this process forward.” This special executive team is helping staff prioritize, focus and commit BPA’s resources to putting Issues ’98 together by May.
After the Issues ’98 comment period ends in late May, the comments received will be summarized and considered. The whole process will be wrapped up by the second week of June, just in time for formal rate case workshops to begin. — Martha Swain, public utilities specialist in Power Products, Pricing and Rates
Awards are great — just ask all those movie people who took home golden statuettes from the recent Academy Awards ceremony.
But, in the real world, who gives the award is sometimes as important as who gets it.
Karl Vischer and the entire Energy Efficiency group are delighted to have won the national End-Use Leadership Award for developing and promoting an industrial energy efficiency software package that has transformed an entire market.
When Marek Samotyj of the Electric Power Research Institute presented the award on March 23, he went out of his way to make a point: “This award is not from EPRI. It is from the electric utility industry. Fifty-three members of the power industry voted for this. It is amazing recognition in this competitive environment.”
The software package, ASDMaster, analyzes motor loads to determine if an adjustable speed drive (the motor’s “brain”) would increase efficiency and be cost-effective, and, if so, what specifications the drive should meet to save energy while improving process control.
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“We think that ASDMaster has the potential to significantly reduce the electric bills of every industrial customer using large motors with variable loads. This will mean a more competitive Northwest economy and satisfied customers,” said Energy Efficiency Vice President Terry Esvelt at the award ceremony. “ASDMaster took shape in the proverbial way, sketched on napkins over lunch at Esparza’s TexMex Restaurant,” says Vischer. Vischer built ASDMaster using the model of MotorMaster and its successor MotorMaster +. These programs make it easy for users to determine when to replace their existing motors with energy efficient models and to identify the most appropriate and cost-effective motor available. Vischer also led the team that developed AIRMaster, a program that does the same sort of thing for compressed air systems. |
From left to right: Marek Samotyi and Ben Banerjee of EPRI congratulate Karl Vischer and Terry Esvelt. |
All these products boost market transformation by providing a basis for making decisions about industrial equipment changes. Project advocates, such as Energy Efficiency’s Mike Rose, whose utility clients serve very large industrial loads, notes that, prior to ASDMaster, evaluation and selection of adjustable speed drives was too technical for easy promotion of the drives. Support for the tool also came from manufacturers who believed that a standard, non-proprietary product was needed and would have more legitimacy than a tool available only through a limited source.
Vischer spent over a year negotiating with EPRI to make ASDMaster available and facilitating contracts between DOE and EPRI. Overcoming the many hurdles to such an innovative arrangement took about twenty contract drafts, each, of course, needing to be reviewed by lawyers from DOE, BPA and EPRI. BPA also arranged a first-ever license between the U.S. Department of Energy and EPRI to offer ASDMaster training workshops nationwide through the DOE Motor Challenge Program. DOE, EPRI and BPA are all selling the software ($100 plus $8 postage from BPA’s Energy Efficiency group) to help recoup development costs.
The various Master products are important because much of the world’s industry and related services run on motors and motor-driven equipment such as air compressors. About 65 percent of all energy used in the United States is consumed by motors, and from 60 to 70 percent of the Northwest’s industrial load that is not part of the direct-service industries runs off motors. A BPA estimate puts the regional energy conservation potential of adjustable speed drives at over 500 average megawatts — the largest savings potential of any industrial resource and close to the 690 aMW achieved to date by all BPA’s conservation investments.
Because electricity costs in the Pacific Northwest are relatively cheap, the programs had more initial success and recognition outside the region. The tools have now found high acceptance in the energy efficiency community and are making their way beyond the sawmill-type applications to other key industries. The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, for instance, has a pilot to demonstrate the value of adjustable speed drives in refrigerated warehouses.
Sharing the winner’s spotlight with Vischer and BPA are such notable companies as Burlington Northern, Weyerhauser and Boeing, which are saving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year because of reductions in both energy use and maintenance costs.
A special day just got better for hundreds of new American citizens and their families because of BPA employees.
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One Friday a month, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service uses the auditorium in the Holladay building next to headquarters for its naturalization ceremony, the ceremony in which applicants become American citizens. The ceremony is a pivotal experience in many peoples’ lives. But the time spent before the ceremony had become less than pleasant. The INS and the General Services Administration, which manages the Holladay building, had tried various ways of getting the hundreds of people through security and the INS processing system. None was satisfactory. The system in effect until March 13, had left all the citizens-to-be, their families and sponsors trapped in the lobby between headquarters and the Holladay building as they waited to get into the auditorium. The wait sometimes stretched as long as three hours. Just getting access to a rest room was difficult because of the need to clear security and to overcome cultural and language issues. The large number of people in the lobby also created difficulties for employees and visitors trying to gain access to the buildings. Jack Kiley, BPA’s General Services manager, felt there had to be a better way to accommodate everyone awaiting the INS ceremony. “This is an important day in the lives of all these new citizens. There had to be a way of helping without creating some big process,” says Kiley. |
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Last month, Kiley and Greg Drais, manager of Office Facilities, sat down with representatives of INS and GSA and offered to help. With Tecom’s assistance, the agency was able to provide folding chairs in the Holladay building lobby. Volunteers from BPA’s General Services and Pluralism Council assisted by giving directions, ensuring that people stayed in the lobby area and helping with security. GSA provided another security guard to speed up the access process.
The INS was pleased to get the help so it could focus on processing the new citizens. The whole event went much, much smoother for everyone. BPA’s contribution was noted in the naturalization ceremony later that morning, and Noville Burns, one of BPA’s volunteers, had the honor of leading the new citizens in the pledge of allegiance.
Says Kiley, “All the BPA helpers I talked to said they felt great about the assistance they provided and enjoyed meeting the visitors.”
Innovative. Creative. Precedent-setting.
Surprising words to describe the work of two federal agencies. But the words are appropriate for a BPA–General Services Administration effort that saved GSA over $1 million.
It all began with a dilemma — the Clinton administration mandated that all federal agencies reduce energy consumption by 30 percent by the year 2005 at the same time Congress slashed those agencies’ appropriated budgets for energy efficiency projects.
In a move familiar to homeowners, GSA decided that, if it could refinance existing debt at lower interest rates, it would have more money available for the mandated energy efficiency improvements.
The test case was a $3.9 million project GSA completed under a Southern California Edison program that provided financing for several federal facilities in the utility’s service area. GSA did not believe its statutory authority allowed it to work directly with a private company to refinance the debt, which carried an interest rate of 13.32 percent. GSA turned to Bonneville for help.
The challenge for BPA was to find a way within its statutory authorities to facilitate refinancing GSA’s debt without taking on any financial risk or requiring any new expenditures by GSA. It took a while, but a couple BPA teams made it work.
“We’re making efficiency projects happen that would otherwise not happen,” says Tim Scanlon, federal market development manager in Energy Efficiency. BPA was able to refinance the GSA project at 7.52 percent through Hannon Armstrong, a Virginia investment bank specializing in federal projects. GSA reduced its monthly payments by nearly 25 percent, saving more than $1 million (net present value) over the term of the project. GSA has already implemented a new water reclamation project with a portion of the money freed up by the refinancing. BPA is managing the new project in addition to several other GSA energy efficiency projects.
“This is a great example of the value we can provide,” says Terry Esvelt, vice president for Energy Efficiency. “In this case, the prime beneficiary is the taxpayer because GSA will now have lower utility bills.”
“We went through a torturous path to get there but, in the end, it was a win-win-win,” says Bryan Bearss, financial specialist in Client Financial Services in the Business Services group. GSA benefits by freeing up money to invest in energy-efficiency projects that help it meet its mandate to conserve energy. BPA benefits by finding a new way to “grow the pie” for energy conservation projects. Federal taxpayers benefit from cost savings and future energy-efficiency improvements.
Two BPA teams worked out the deal. A cross-agency team of employees from Energy Efficiency, Finance and Legal Services (Phyllis Chamberlain, Jim Dowty, Shelly Holms Parrish, Frank Brown, Ernie Estes, Rick Miller and Don Carbonari) identified and resolved financial and legal obstacles to make refinancing feasible. A second team (Tim Scanlon, Peggy Crossman, Frank Brown, Bryan Bearss and Ernie Estes) negotiated the contracts and completed the deal.
The result is an innovative tool that can be used to help other federal agencies meet their energy efficiency goals. The approach relies on two contracts — an interagency agreement task order between BPA and the federal agency and a separate funding agreement between BPA and the investment bank.
Other federal agencies and utilities have expressed interest in working with BPA on similar projects. Scanlon and GSA’s Mark Levi described the interagency agreement at the Federal Energy Management Program/Utility Workshop in Albuquerque, N.M., in February. Scanlon has also been asked to speak at the West Coast Energy Management Congress in Anaheim, Calif., in April.
“This just proves what you can do when you have highly dedicated people working together toward a common goal,” says Scanlon. He says everyone on the BPA teams made important contributions — some brought strong negotiating and interpersonal skills; others in-depth knowledge of BPA’s statutory authorities and financial policies and of federal energy policy; others technical expertise in non-recourse financing, contract law and energy efficiency projects.
Creative cross-agency efforts like this one demonstrate how the agency will continue its tradition of providing public benefits as budgets shrink at BPA and in the rest of the federal government. — Nicia Balla, public affairs specialist in Communications
Forget Waldo.
Where are entire work groups?
There’s been a whole lot of moving going on over the last year. When the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said to separate the transmission people from the power people, it probably didn’t envision the Columbia River and a state line as part of the deal. But that is what it took to separate the groups.
The moving is not over, but it has slowed down enough to take a look at where groups are. A lot of consolidation has taken place. In the Portland/Vancouver area, most employees are now in the headquarters building and on the Ross Complex grounds. There are exceptions — training is still across 9th Avenue from headquarters, some Business Services Group people are in the Holladay (911) building and the Power Business Line’s Western Area Customer Service Center is in the 700 building on Multnomah — but a whole lot of progress has been made.
The maps and diagrams on this and the next page will help locate work groups. The sketches of the floor plan of the headquarters building can at least lead people to the right floors to find groups. The map of the Ross Complex includes a blowup of the Dittmer building that can guide people to areas of that building.
The map of the region shows just how spread out the agency is and will probably surprise people with the number of employees stationed away from headquarters and Ross.
As of late January, BPA had about 2,800 employees. Of those, over 800 are in the field. Another group of slightly less than 900 is stationed at Ross, although about a 100 of those employees are seldom at Ross because they are dispatched to various locations in the field. The remaining employees, a bit over 1,000, are in Portland.
| Headquarters Building Floor Plan | Dittmer Building Floor Plan | |
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| Floor 7 | Contract Property Management General Services Executive Office Corporate Communications Legal Internal Audit IR Corporate Planning |
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| Floor 6 | Power Business Line PM PB P PG PS PL |
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| Floor 5 | Power Business Line PR PS PG |
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| Floor 4 | Transmission Business Line, TN Environment, Fish & Wildlife |
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| Floor 3 | Transmission Business Line, TN & TS mixed |
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| Floor 2 | Information Services Financial Services |
System Operations (TOO) Technical Operations (TOON) Network Planning (TOP) Executive Offices, Staff Support, Marketing and Sales (T/TS/TM) Customer Service Planning and Engineering (TOC) Budget, Scheduling and Estimating (TOE) Transmission Contracting (TMC) Business Strategy and Assessment (TMP) Control Center Software Design, Mtce. (TOOS) |
| Floor 1 | Energy Efficiency Information Center Library Human Resources Corporate Purchasing |
Dispatch Training Center Transmission Supply (TMS) Operations Training Center Cafeteria Control Center Software Design, Mtce. (TOOS) |
| Floor B1 | Phone Office Records Mail Services Media Services |
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Agency-wide officesBPA Headquarters905 N.W. 11th Avenue Portland OR 97208 (503) 230-3000 BPA Public InvolvementP.O. Box 12999 Portland OR 97212 (503) 230-3478 1-800-622-4519 Washington, D.C. OfficeForrestal Bldg., Room 8G033 1000 Independence Ave., S.W. Washington, D.C. 20585 (202) 586-5640 Document request line1-800-622-4520 (recorded message only) Web sitehttp://www.bpa.gov OASIS Web sitehttp://www.nwoasis.Org/OASIS/BPA |
Power Business Line Customer Service CentersBend Customer Service Center1011 S.W. Amkay Dr. Bend OR 97702 (541) 318-1680 Burley Customer Service Center2700 Overland Burley ID 83318 (208) 678-9481 Eastern Area Customer Service Center707 W. Main St., Suite 500 Spokane WA 99201 (509) 358-7409 Idaho Falls Customer Service Center1350 Lindsay Blvd. Idaho Falls ID 83402 (208) 524-8750 Missoula Customer Service Center800 Kensington, Suite 204 Missoula MT 59801 (406) 329-3060 Richland Customer Service CenterP.O. Box 968 Richland WA 99352 (509) 372-5751 Seattle Customer Service Center1601 5th Ave., Suite 1000 Seattle WA 98101-1670 (206) 216-4272 Walla Walla Customer Service Center1520 Kelly Place Walla Walla WA 99362 (509) 527-6225 Western Area Customer Service Center700 N.E. Multnomah, Suite 400 Portland OR 97232 (503) 230-7597 |
Transmission Business Line Regional OfficesEugene Region86000 Franklin Eugene OR 97405 (541) 465-6991 Idaho Falls Region1350 Lindsay Blvd. Idaho Falls ID 83402 (208) 524-8770 Olympia Region5240 Trosper St., S.W. Olympia WA 98512-5623 (360) 704-1600 Redmond Region3655 W. Highway 126 Redmond OR 97756 (541) 548-4015 Snohomish Region914 Ave. D Snohomish WA 98290 (360) 568-4962 Spokane Region707 W. Main, Suite 500 Spokane WA 99201-0608 (509) 358-7358 Walla Walla Region1520 Kelly Place Walla Walla WA 99362 (509) 527-6238 |
Planning a BPA trip? Before you schedule a commercial flight, view another option in Schdule Plus. Just type in BPA Airplane Schedule to check for flights.
For more information, call Terry Hoover, at Aircraft Services, 503-230-4017
Imagine purchasing a $1,500 appliance that can provide all the power needed to run a house.
That appliance is a fuel cell.
“The beauty of this technology is that it has no moving parts, is silent and is maintenance free because there is nothing to replace,” says Mark Jackson. Jackson, a senior engineer in the Energy Efficiency group, has been leading the BPA power fuel cell system research and development effort for three years.
Fuel cells have a lot in common with batteries, except they are continuously supplied with fuel from an external source. Fuel cells produce electricity by capturing the energy created when hydrogen and oxygen are combined to form water.
Mark Jackson point to BPA's prototype one-kilowatt fuel cell |
So why is BPA, a wholesale marketer of hydropower, involved in fuel cell technology? “Strategically, BPA needs to keep abreast of the technology because it will have cost and other impacts on the electricity market. We have already seen the first commercial applications of fuel cells in the Northwest at hotels and hospitals that can make use of both the power and the hot water produced by 200-kilowatt molten carbonate fuel cells,” says Jackson. And the Energy Efficiency group looked at how and where BPA uses power and found hundreds of potential applications in which fuel cells could be cost effective. For example, it costs nearly $200,000 on average to design and install a propane-powered backup generator system at a mountaintop microwave site. With fuel cell technology, BPA could provide the power for less than half the initial cost and with greatly reduced maintenance costs. “Anywhere we have need for backup power or battery storage is a potential opportunity,” says Jackson. BPA has joined with Northwest Power Systems in Bend, Ore., and DeNora in Italy to complete development of a five-kW methanol-powered proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell system. The system supplies both direct current and alternating current power. Packaged systems can be configured to provide five to 50 kW of power. Hydrogen is supplied by an on-board reformer that converts methanol and water into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. “This system is expected to be at least 50 percent more efficient at converting fuel into electricity than diesel generation sets,” says Jackson. “We demonstrated that the system works by first building a one-kW version, complete with reformer. Our unit is the first PEM system on the planet to successfully integrate fuel reforming and hydrogen purification technology on this scale. Others are talking about doing it; we have done it.” |
The initial application for the system will be in remote locations where emergency propane- or diesel-powered backup generation and battery storage would otherwise be used. Other utilities, telecommunication systems and anyone needing portable, silent, clean power all represent potential markets.
Cost for the first 25 units should be around $25,000 each. Volume sales could drop the cost per unit as low as $1,300 within three years. “With sufficient volume, it becomes feasible for a manufacturer to invest in a physical plant capable of robotic manufacture and assembly. Right now, the fuel cell stacks are hand assembled. It’s like having a machine shop custom build a V8 engine from metal bar stock,” says Jackson.
Jackson is optimistic about the future of the fuel cell technology because he is seeing results now. “Within ten years, proton exchange membrane fuel cells will be commercially available in the 20-watt to 50-kW range. A small 20-watt system has already been demonstrated by a Canadian firm. The lightweight unit is the size of a paving brick and can provide a laptop computer with 20 hours of power on a single hydrogen charge. Larger PEM fuel cells can provide power for virtually any application, including electric vehicles and houses,” says Jackson.
For large-scale power generation in the five-megawatt and above range, high-temperature solid-oxide fuel cells will be the dominant generation technology. “DOE and manufacturing partners such as Westinghouse are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into this technology,” Jackson says. “It will hit the market in a few years.”
“There are some Japanese, German and American companies that are testing fuel cells for cars that should hit the market in about six years,” says Jackson. “We won’t see it make a big impact on either the transportation or stationary power sectors in the United States for 10-15 years, but we’re watching development very closely.”
BPA is doing a whole lot more than watch. The first BPA five-kW PEM power system should be ready to demonstrate by the end of September. — Cheri Larson, public affairs specialist in Public Affairs
Leon Kempner really likes to shake things up. It’s not that he’s destructive; he just wants to know what it takes to break substation equipment. It’s all part of a race with The Big One. And lots of little ones.
Kempner shakes equipment to simulate earthquakes. Then he uses what he learns to strengthen substations so they have a better chance of escaping damage from “seismic events,” which the layperson would call an earthquake.
Seven years ago, Kempner, a structural engineer in the Transmission Business Line, was assigned to a project to reassess the seismic criteria for the Keeler and Maple Valley substation static var compensation project. The review determined that BPA’s criteria did not reflect the current seismic hazard for the Pacific Northwest.
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The discovery led to the development of a mitigation plan for all of BPA’s facilities and the identification of transmission system seismic vulnerabilities. The goal is to minimize damage to BPA’s facilities during an earthquake and to provide for an acceptable level of power system recovery. The plan identifies problem areas, potential issues and future concerns. “After doing some system preliminary work in the region, we found that the Puget Sound area is at most risk for reoccurring earthquakes,” says Kempner. Ten substations in the Puget Sound area have been targeted for seismic improvements by the end of the year. Kempner has been working with a technical team and BPA’s Force Account field personnel to complete the improvements. After critical seismic issues are identified, and mitigation options are designed, Force Account field personnel go to work anchoring transformers, improving the bracing for power circuit breakers, hardening batteries for emergency generators and adding flexibility to the equipment connections. “Our work typically doesn’t require taking a substation outage,” says Kempner. “In most cases, we are able to complete the work immediately after an assessment is done.” When Kempner wants to find out if equipment will hold up to earthquakes, he takes it to the seismic shake table in the Civil Engineering Seismic Testing and Applied Research (STAR) laboratory at Portland State University. The only seismic shake table in Oregon, it is three meters square and driven by hydraulics. BPA uses the table to test equipment against an industry accepted design spectrum that represents the expected seismic event for a given region taking into account distance from the fault, soil conditions, structure type and the like. Graduate students under the direction of Dr. Wendelin Mueller III, civil engineering professor at PSU, test the equipment and Kempner acts as adviser and expert witness to the results. |
Top: The seismic shake table. Bottom left: A piece of equipment to be tested is bolted to the top of the table. Bottom right: The control room. |
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Recently, Kempner tested a series of communication racks to see if they would hold up. “We hit it hard,” says Kempner. “It didn’t fall, but clearly the connections cracked.” That test prompted the redesign of the connections to handle the stress. All of BPA’s new communication racks are now being modified to survive an earthquake.
Some of the improvements based on the test have been as simple as adding nuts and bolts to communication racks and designing neoprene pads for instrument transformer equipment stands.
BPA uses the shake table every Friday. “The hands-on experience and technical advice they receive from us benefits the students, and it is valuable testing for BPA,” says Kempner.
Kempner knows that the preventive maintenance he and his team are doing will help minimize damage to the power system. They have seen some success stories. In 1996, the Duval earthquake that hit the Seattle area lightly damaged the Monroe substation. “Just a few weeks earlier, we had installed seismic dampers in the ELF live tank power circuit breakers,” says Kempner. “We saw it as a major success because it saved the substation from more damage.”
Future plans for the 1999 fiscal year are to seismically harden critical substations from Longview, Wash., down to Eugene, Ore.
Kempner believes that all his shaking is helping BPA conduct a seismic mitigation program that will prepare BPA facilities for when the next Big One hits. — Cheri Larson, public affairs specialist in Public Affairs
More than a pretty cover, inside it looks like a business-oriented family photo album.
It’s the BPA annual report for the 1997 fiscal year.
The newest edition of the report features pictures and quotes from 14 employees and retirees who talk about their families’ connection to the Columbia River and its tributaries.
If that isn’t enough to entice readers, there is always the report itself. Officially a report to the Clinton administration on the agency’s activities for the fiscal year, the annual report is more avidly read by the denizens of Wall Street. The financial community pores over the report to analyze BPA’s financial and business position as part of its evaluation of bonds backed by BPA. That evaluation can be worth millions to the agency when it refinances nongovernmental debt such as Washington Public Power Supply System bonds.
Employees who want to understand the business part of the agency’s life — how BPA handles its finances so it can support its public benefits — can read the text and graphs surrounding the family photos.
A limited supply of the report is available in the Public Information Center at headquarters (503-230-7334 or 1-800-622-4520). An unlimited supply is available to employees under Publications on the BPA homepage on the BPA internal Web site (http://webip1/Corporate/KCC/ar/97ar/97arwel.htm) and to others under Publications on the BPA external Web site home page (http://www.bpa.gov/Corporate/KCC/ar/97ar/97arwelx.htm).
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The Lloyd District is a dynamic neighborhood. And an important one for all who work at and visit BPA headquarters in Portland. The neighborhood has a lot of desirable qualities — homes, stores, offices. But it also has a growing population and limited parking. Headquarters commuters will be glad to hear that a group of people, the Lloyd District Transportation Management Association (TMA), meets monthly to resolve transportation issues in the neighborhood. Betsy Pratt, BPA’s manager for library services, is the TMA president for 1998. Pratt, who has an urban studies degree, says, “I like the issues and find them interesting. It’s also a good group of people. I work with the manager of the Lloyd Center, a facilities manager from Kaiser-Permanente, human resources manager from CH2M Hill, as well as with people from the Port of Portland, Nationwide Insurance and the state of Oregon.” |
Betsy Pratt surveys parking in the Lloyd District |
Both Oregon and Washington require that certain large employers (including BPA) implement programs to reduce commuter trips. The Lloyd District TMA and the other agencies are developing ways to help employers meet those rules and other goals of Portland’s Central City Transportation Management Plan.
One of the TMA’s most successful efforts is the Tri-Met Passport program, a transit discount for employees of area businesses. BPA does not participate in the Passport program because it has its own program. But, Pratt says, “We’ve gotten some of the benefits of the Passport program in Tri-Met service improvements and Tri-Met outreach and education.” BPA’s program pays for part of the cost of bus passes for commuters on Tri-Met and C-Tran, the Vancouver, Wash., counterpart of Tri-Met (see sidebar).
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Members of the Lloyd District TMA represent property and building owners, business owners and operators, public agencies and neighborhood associations. And it works in formal partnership with the city of Portland and Tri-Met, Portland’s regional transit authority. Over the next 10 years, the Lloyd District is expected to grow by 16,000 employees, bringing even more parking demand, traffic congestion and air quality concerns. The Lloyd District TMA wants to ease these problems by reducing the number of trips made into the area in single-occupancy vehicles and by promoting greater use of mass transit. The TMA also works with local businesses to encourage ridesharing and bicycle commuting. Tri-Met added some bus routes and service improvements to the Lloyd District, which BPA employees can take advantage of, as a reward for the Lloyd District TMA’s success in marketing the Passport program. The TMA also held transportation fairs prior to the Interstate-5 bridge closure to help commuters understand their options for getting to work. How do all the new parking meters fit in? The Lloyd District is an urban neighborhood with “an array of issues and perspectives because there is a mix of uses,” Pratt says. Those uses include a growing demand for short-term parking — the businesses in the area want their customers to be able to park conveniently. The Lloyd District TMA is working with local businesses and the city of Portland to control parking in the area with signs and meters. Revenue from the meters supports TMA programs as well as the city. It’s clearly a benefit to have a group of interested persons taking a big-picture long-term look at transportation issues for the neighborhood. Commuting information from the TMA is always available in the headquarters lobby at a kiosk just south of the doors to the 911 building. BPA’s web page also provides a wealth of useful information on commuting. From the Corporate home page, select the General Services (CG) organization page and then Commuter Information. — Martha Swain, public utilties specialist in Power Products, Pricing and Rates |
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Ray Classen, BPA’s pied piper of resource-efficient washing machines was quite taken by the photo and story on page one of the March 25 USA Today. Usually, Classen views the machine from outside rather than from inside, but the machine is beautiful to him from either angle.
“I thought the story was a good sign. Resource-efficient washing machines are starting to get national attention. We were one of the forerunners in promoting the technology,” says Classen.
Classen has been promoting the machines since 1996, first as part of a BPA program and now under the auspices of WashWise, a program of the BPA-supported Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance. The goal, Classen explains, is to help change federal energy efficiency standards. The recent national attention is expected to increase the machines’ market share, which will hasten those changes. Then all washing machines will be energy efficient.
The new machines are a bit more expensive than standard washers, but they require less of every resource used in washing — 40 percent less water, 60 percent less energy to heat the water and less detergent. On top of that, they produce drier clothes so less energy is needed for drying, and they are easier on clothes. Check out the new machines and the rebates still being offered by going to the Northwest Energy Alliance Web page at http://www.nwalliance.org and look under Projects.
