Some of the Bonneville Power Administration’s proposals aimed at improving transmission planning processes risk pushing study timelines to the point where the agency’s customers could run afoul of Washington and Oregon’s clean energy targets, stakeholders say.

BPA paused certain planning processes and launched the Grid Access Transformation (GAT) project in 2025 to consider changes following a surge of transmission service requests (TSRs). The most recent transmission study includes 61 GW of new generation, compared with 5.9 GW in 2021, according to the agency. (See BPA Halts Some Tx Planning Processes Amid Service Requests.)

BPA’s proposal to tackle the queue involves a two-part approach: a transitional phase to get off the pause and a longer-term “future state” that will include more substantial reforms to BPA’s existing transmission processes, such as shifting toward proactive transmission planning (an approach that seeks to forecast transmission needs and prepare the system ahead of time rather than just reacting to customer requests).

During a Jan. 6 meeting, BPA staff and industry representatives discussed options the agency could pursue during its transitional phase to identify customers eligible for transmission service awards to get off pause while the agency continues to plan for the “future state.”

“Depending on the outcome of queue reform, the queue size will be a determining factor in which type(s) of transition analysis can be completed,” according to BPA’s presentation slides. “Additionally, the same team that does this transition analysis is also working to stand up proactive planning and achieve the future state. Essentially, more time dedicated to transition analysis will delay the future state.”

Some of the transition study options BPA has presented could present challenges for Oregon and Washington-based customers, Henry Tilghman, a consultant whose clients include Renewable Northwest and the Northwest & Intermountain Power Producers Coalition, told RTO Insider. (Tilghman spoke on his own behalf, not that of his clients.)

Washington and Oregon passed aggressive clean energy laws in 2019 and 2021, respectively, requiring electric utilities to meet strict greenhouse gas standards by 2030. (See Washington Agencies Adopt New Rules to Implement CETA and Clean Energy, Equity Goals to Reshape Oregon IRP Process.)

Many of the options presented by BPA would push study timelines for transmission service requests beyond the 2030 deadline, according to Tilghman. He noted that some options would result in transmission service awards before 2030, though those options would require smaller study volumes.

Tilghman’s clients have yet to adopt a preferred option, but he said the timeline to complete the transition study could be one factor they would consider in making their choice.

“There are a lot of ways to look at … what the right solution is here,” Tilghman told BPA at the Jan. 6 meeting. “One of them would be to focus on what gets the most new transmission service, even if that’s interim or conditional firm service, into the hands of customers by those 2030 deadlines. … And certainly one way we could go would be to design a program that would facilitate … filling up the transmission grid that will exist in 2030 with transmission service in customers’ hands.”

Seattle City Light’s Michael Watkins echoed Tilghman’s comments, saying the discussions are “about meeting customer needs for transmission for 2030, 2035 and 2040.” He added that “strict regulatory requirements” are forcing the industry “down certain roads.”

BPA must “answer those needs,” Watkins said. “Because the needs are large enough that if Bonneville does not answer those needs, someone else will. And … none of us may like how that happens — both customers and Bonneville. So, we need to come together and meet those needs somehow.”

Proactive planning is the fastest way to create available transmission to serve needs by 2030 and 2035, Watkins added.

“If we really hit the gas, we can do that,” he said. “But if we spend the next 24 to 36 months still trying to slice the existing pie, we’re not going to get there.”

‘Sweet Spot’

The discussion around Washington and Oregon’s clean energy goals was prompted by comments from Randy Hardy, the agency’s administrator from 1991 to 1997.

During the Jan. 6 meeting, Hardy reiterated claims he made to RTO Insider in June 2025, arguing that the states’ respective laws set off a “gold rush’ among developers, eventually leading to today’s situation. (See Industry Sees Challenges as BPA Considers ‘Radical’ Updates to Tx Planning.)

“That’s the nature of the problem,” Hardy said Jan. 6. “It’s not a Bonneville problem. It’s not a customer problem. Its origins are in the state legislative mandates, which have created essentially an unmeetable situation relative to the 2030 deadline and the 65 GW in the queue, which now Bonneville is left holding the bag and having to solve. And that’s what we’re all trying to do.”

In an email, BPA spokesperson Kevin Wingert said when the agency decided to transition to a new process for its large generator interconnection queue to be able to study the “the unprecedented number of gigawatts being requested (there is 61GW of generation in the current study), we identified 16 GW of late-stage generation projects that were ready to move forward beyond the queue process into execution.”

“We’ve begun the process of integrating that generation at a rate of roughly 1 to 1.5 GW per year,” Wingert wrote. “We anticipate 7.5 GW being integrated by 2030, with the full 16 GW of late-stage projects being integrated by 2035. That 1 to 1.5 GW integration rate is record setting for BPA and represents a basic sweet spot in terms of capacity from workforce, contracting, manufacturing and supply chain elements. We anticipate maintaining that pace for the foreseeable future.”

Wingert added that BPA is “working on reducing our timeline for project delivery down to a five- to six-year window. This work is incremental in nature, but our current goal for full implementation on this effort is 2030 and includes efforts to increase study efficiencies like potential automation or contracting aspects of the work.”