Products and Services

WAPA’s Products and Services

WAPA procures renewable energy and renewable energy certificates generated in the United States through a competitive process and passes the energy and/or benefits on to Federal agencies. Three renewable resource products are available to meet your agency’s needs:

• Renewable Energy Certificates
• Renewable energy delivered to your site
• Power purchase agreements for renewable energy generated at your site

Renewable Energy Certificates

RECs are the environmental attributes of power generated from renewable resources. No renewable energy is physically delivered to your site; only the environmental attributes of renewable generation are purchased. WAPA can facilitate the purchase of RECs for any Federal agency.

For sites where renewable power delivery is restricted because of physical or institutional barriers, this product may best meet an agency’s needs

Product benefits:

• No transmission or ancillary services are required
• No impact to your existing power supplier
• RECs are certified and verified ‘green’

Renewable Energy Delivered To Your Site

If you are a Federal agency and a WAPA customer within Western territory, we may be able to buy and deliver renewable energy to your facility. Agency costs include renewable power generation, transmission (if needed), related ancillary services, distribution (if needed) and program administration. If your agency receives power from another utility, you will need to obtain the cooperation of that utility before arrangements can be made to deliver renewable energy from WAPA.

Product benefits:

• Manage potential price volatility of conventional power generation
• Clean energy delivered to your facility
• Long term power purchase contracts

Power Purchase Agreements for Renewable Energy Generated On Your Site

If agencies wish to host a third party-owned renewable energy project on Federal facilities or Federal lands within Western territory, WAPA can purchase the energy from that project on behalf of the agency under a long-term power purchase agreement. The Federal site selects the renewable developer and provides land or roof space to the supplier through a lease, easement, license or other appropriate document. WAPA negotiates the PPA terms and conditions. In most cases the supplier sells the renewable energy certificates to improve project economics.

Product benefits:

• Use Federal land and facilities for renewable energy development
• Pay no capital costs for onsite generation
• No operations and maintenance responsibility for agency
• Manage potential price volatility of conventional power generation
• Purchase long-term energy
• Support public/private partnerships

For these agreements to work, the agency needs:

• A third party owner/operator selected by the agency through a competitive process
• Reasonably priced energy to meet site load
• Possible NEPA review
• Long-term power purchase contracts
• Risk mitigation strategy

The renewable energy supplier needs:

• Interconnection access, metering and other utility-related issues for the renewable energy system
• Local utility support of the project
• Appropriate site and Federal site lease or license
• Financial incentives (tax benefits, rebates from state or local utility, high REC prices, etc.)
• Purchaser for the RECs from the project
• Project financing
• Long-term power purchase contract

For projects developed on Federal sites that will be exporting most of their generation, WAPA can also conduct prefeasibility transmission studies.

For more details on purchasing RECs or renewable energy for your specific situation, contact us.