The Bonneville Power Administration has resumed hiring after workforce reductions as part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to slim down the federal government, Deputy Administrator Suzanne Cooper said during the agency’s quarterly business review.
After receiving authority to fill critical functions, BPA resumed hiring in September and is looking to fill 155 positions. To date, the agency has posted 122 job openings, Cooper said during BPA’s fourth quarterly business review on Nov. 13. Cooper filled in for Administrator John Hairston, who had a scheduling conflict.
“The response has been overwhelming,” Cooper said. “So far, we’ve received more than 3,450 applications, and we’ve made 49 selections. We are ecstatic about the level of interest, especially for positions that are typically difficult to fill.”
BPA staff received a “deferred resignation” buyout offer in January from Trump’s unofficial Department of Government Efficiency, immediately setting off alarms in the electricity sector about the impact on the region’s grid reliability.
About 200 agency employees — or 6% of the workforce — accepted the buyout offer, while 90 job offers had been rescinded following a federal hiring freeze announced Jan. 20, according to BPA. (See BPA Exempted from Federal Staffing Cuts, Hairston Says.)
Despite workforce challenges, BPA continued work on 23 projects as part of a $5 billion portfolio the agency expects will add more than 6,000 MW of transmission capacity. The projects are expected to be completed by 2035, Cooper said.
“When including other planned projects designed to sustain our existing assets, BPA’s total projected grid investment for the next 10 years is approximately $15 billion,” Cooper said.
BPA has launched other initiatives aimed at boosting capacity, such as the Grid Access Transformation Project (GAT), which it launched after pausing certain transmission planning processes to consider changes in how it will tackle 65 GW of transmission service requests. (See Utilities Back Some BPA Transmission Updates, Hesitate on Others.)
“We are also benefiting from the work done in recent years to modify our large generator interconnection process,” Cooper said. “We move to a first-ready, first-served approach that will improve … interconnection queue processing and address backlog. We plan to complete our first generator interconnection cluster study in January of 2026. This cluster study represents 167 customer requests and more than 61 GW of generation.”
BPA’s entrance into SPP’s day-ahead Markets+ in October 2028 will further “optimize the use of our existing transmission and generating assets, as well as give us accurate data regarding our capacity needs, which we expect will help inform future investment,” Cooper added.
BPA hosted the quarterly business review shortly after committing to the Western Resource Adequacy Program’s first financially “binding” season covering winter 2027/28. BPA was one out of 16 entities committing to WRAP’s first binding season. Five utilities withdrew from the program. (See WRAP Wins Commitments from 16 Entities.)
“BPA continued to see the near- and long-term value of the Western Power Pool’s resource adequacy program, which remains one of the largest such programs in the country,” Cooper said. “While a few utilities opted to exit the program, WRAP remains viable and continues to provide critical tools and resources to help address current and future reliability challenges.”
Financial Outlook
Tom McDonald, BPA’s chief financial officer, provided an update during the Nov. 13 call, saying that “despite difficult hydrological conditions, BPA met its key performance indicators this year. The well below-average water supply, however, tested our financial risk mechanisms.”
In fiscal 2025, BPA achieved net revenues of $74 million, $4 million above target. The result largely was driven by transmission service revenues, which came in $22 million over target. However, this is $211 million below the rates-based forecast of $285 million, according to a news release.
