Customers

Western Area Power Administration sells power to more than 684 firm and non-firm wholesale power customers, including cities and towns, rural electric cooperatives, public utility and irrigation districts.

WAPA’s customers are represented by its four regional offices and Management Center that include Colorado River Storage Project Management Center, Desert Southwest Region, Rocky Mountain Region, Sierra Nevada Region and Upper Great Plains Region.

WAPA is a wholesale power provider. Our customers provide retail electric service to millions of consumers in 15 western and central states. However, we do have a number of end-use customers, including federal and state agencies, tribes and irrigation districts that do not resell power from WAPA to residential or commercial consumers but use it for their own facilities. Overall, the vast majority of WAPA’s customers/customer members serve consumers over their electrical distribution systems.

Creditworthiness Procedures

Creditworthiness procedures (PDF) reduce financial exposure for our customers and protect WAPA’s ability to continue operations in the case of a customer default.

Creditworthiness procedures are an industry standard/best practice. Each of the organized markets surrounding WAPA have creditworthiness requirements incorporated into their tariffs.

The procedure outlines the process for actively monitoring the low risk of a customer defaulting on a bill, and how to mitigate the risk of placing an additional financial burden on remaining project customers.

Long-Term Firm Power Requirements​

Long-term firm customers must have preference status, be within the project marketing area, have utility status (except for Native American tribes), be ready and able to deliver power to their loads and must complete an electric service contract with WAPA.

Various laws, including the Reclamation Project Act of 1939, require WAPA to give preference to certain types of nonprofit organizations seeking to purchase Federal power. Those entitled to preference include cities and towns, state and federal agencies, irrigation districts, public utility districts and rural electric cooperatives. WAPA also developed a policy to give preference to Native American tribes regardless of whether they have utility status.

Purchasing Only Transmission

When WAPA has excess transmission available to market, it is listed on an Open Access Same-time Information System, or OASIS site. Available transmission capacity on WAPA’s lines can be purchased by those who seek to deliver energy across WAPA’s system. WAPA also may use existing transmission contracts or OASIS sites to purchase transmission to deliver energy to our customers.

Customer List​

To use the sortable list: Hover over the column heading and use the dropdown arrow selections to sort or filter by customer type, state, regional office and/or project.