Power and Water Resource Pooling Authority

As part of providing on-going power resource consulting to irrigation customers whose federal power contracts were changing, RBI conceived of, organized, and implemented a joint powers authority (JPA) for the Power and Water Resources Pooling Authority. RBI assembled a team of attorneys, metering agents, and consultants to formulate and operate the JPA as a public utility with wholesale access to power markets. This JPA consists of 15 public agencies and 480 loads that range seasonally from 18 MW to 120 MW in the Pacific Gas & Electric territory. RBI operated, and is still involved in, most aspects of this utility, including load profiling, strategic planning and risk management, portfolio management, power delivery (Distribution and Metering) coordination, billing rate making and cost reconciliation under annual budgets ranging from $30 to $42 million. Pooling arrangements conceived of and implemented by RBI saved these entities approximately one-third of the otherwise available resources.