The Sacramento Municipal Utility District is currently managing two hydropower generation issues that might cause short-term pain or long-term devastation. One involves state government, the other Mother Nature. The larger issue is the San Joaquin River Delta in the Central Valley restoration efforts by the state. According to a new study by SMUD and other water and power users both north and south of the delta, there could be a negative impact if recommendations on flow criteria made by a state water board are enacted. “This is a big one,” board member Howard Posner said Feb. 2. “This is critically important to SMUD and to our ratepayers. Power from the Central Valley project is a major component of SMUD’s power portfolio.” The study was conducted in response to efforts to implement the San Joaquin Delta Reform Act of 2009, an effort to restore the delta’s ecosystem and provide a more reliable water supply for the state. The reform act, among other things, created a new state agency called the Delta Stewardship Council to oversee development and implementation of a long range plan to manage the delta, and requires the State Water Resources Control Board to develop water flow criteria to help inform the decision making of the stewardship council. The Bay Delta is the hub of the state’s major water system. The confluence of rivers in the Bay Delta provides critical habitat to a number of imperiled fish species.. The legislation also charges the stewardship council with developing a comprehensive delta management plan by 2012. The water board’s flow criteria report, which was issued in August 2010, recommends drastic changes to river flows into the delta, but doesn’t include analysis of the impacts of the recommended changes, such as how they’d affect hydropower generation. Posner said the SMUD-sponsored study found that hydropower would almost certainly be negatively affected. “In summary, the impacts would be devastating to water system operations both up and down stream of the delta,” Posner explained. “SMUD is particularly concerned about the impacts to hydropower generation in the Central Valley project due to lower reservoir storage in all seasons, including the summer when water is used to generate power to meet peak demand.” An updated draft of the stewardship council’s plan was recently issued. A scoping session on the changes is planned for May 16. “We will continue to be monitoring this,” Posner said. “This could have quite a major impact on our operation here.” The California Municipal Utilities Association and its members have been working with a coalition of water and power interests “to ensure that the energy and water supply implications are fully understood by decision makers,” according to Steve Sorey, SMUD’s manager of energy trading and contracts. The other hydro issue the muni’s dealing with involves a projected lack of precipitation this year. “For 2012, the water year is looking somewhat gloomy, with an 87 percent chance of a below normal water year,” “This would mean buying replacement power on the spot market,” said Renee Taylor, chair of SMUD’s finance committee, during the Feb. 2 meeting. The good news, Taylor said, is that natural gas and electric power prices are low, which means the muni should be able to make it through a very dry year without any significant financial impact. SMUD’s hydropower comes from its Upper American River Project, which is comprised of 11 reservoirs and eight powerhouses. The project provides roughly 1.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in a normal water year, according to the muni, enough to power about 180,000 homes. The American River’s hydro facility is up for relicensing by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission later this year.
