In 1903 The US Government enacted a law providing for the Roosevelt Dam that created the Salt River Project, one of the earliest irrigation and flood districts. The Roosevelt Dam also created hydroelectricity. In 1933 TVA was created in a similar way, and in 1937 BPA. Additional dams for flood control and irrigation were created in many parts of the US mostly by the Army Corp of Engineers. Most of these dams were created under separate laws with various duties and authority.
In 1944 a single act was created that consolidated many of the authorities into a mostly uniform set of regulations. The last amendment to that act was in 2016, and likely it will be amended again in the future [ unlike many bills in Congress today this one is only 6 pages!].
The Flood Control Act requires electricity to be sold in preference to public power authorities (Coops and Munis, as well as large industrial customers). Covered by this act are 133 dams that make significant amounts of electricity (and over 5,000 that do not) today). About 8% of the US’s electricity is made from these dams.
Four Federal Power Marketing (FPM) districts exist: Bonneville Power Administration (BPA)- 1937; Southwestern Power Administration (SWPA) 1943; Southeastern Power Administration (SEPA) 1950; Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) 1977.
More recently as the Independent System Operators (ISO) were formed [like PJM], the FPM became members of the ISO for balancing services (e.g., BPA belongs to CAISO) and they participate in their NERC regions.
Each of the 4 FPM are funded by their sale of electricity (and to a smaller extent) water to customers. Their accounting is cash accounting and not based on return on invested capital (ROIC). They are federal assets and do not have stockholders.
SEPA is owned and run by TVA and handles other federal facilities outside of the Tennessee Valley. TVA is a Federal corporation that runs independently of other government entities.
SRP is a member of WAPA.
FPM also manage and operate other types of generation including nuclear, renewable and fossil generation, pumped and other energy storage.
For the most part FPM operate generation and transmission only. The major outlier is SRP.
The FPM largely cooperate with states and state regulators but are not subject to specific state laws and regulations. The Engineer of Record for most facilities is the US Army Corp of Engineers. The Corp has the ultimate decision on when water is released for many facilities, to meet obligations that are beyond the production of power (maintaining a minimum flow of the river in a drought, for example).
Part #2 - Distribution Cooperatives
Part #3 -Â Generation and Transmission Cooperatives (G&T)
{Thank you to Jeff Nelson for corrections}
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