102 



within the next couple of years and market that power to current Bonneville 

 customers KVA Resources is in the permitting process right now for a site in 

 Creston, Washington, where it hopes to build 800 megawatts of combustion 

 turbine generation Diamond Energy is working with the City of Klamath Falls to 

 build a combustion turbine near the California border at a site very close to 

 existing transmission and an existing gas pipeline Power Resources Managers has 

 about 750 megawatts of new generation on the short-list from its recent Request 

 For Proposal that could be built within the next few years These resources could 

 meet the needs of customers who have already decided to buy power from a 

 competitor, or they could lead to additional declines in sales On the other hand, 

 BPA in late April coinpleted a power sales agreement with West Oregon Electric 

 Co-op from Vernonia, Oregon to retain their eight megawatt load for five more 

 years 



To summarize, then, the marketplace for electricity in the Pacific 

 Northwest is quite competitive - and likely to stay that way Considerable excess 

 capacitv exists, including additional power from the Inland Southwest, and 

 considerable capacity is in the planning stage Recent efforts to deregulate the 

 electricity industry have allowed new participants into the wholesale market, such 

 as independent power producers, and current low gas prices and increased 

 efficiencies of combustion turbines together have resulted in about a 25 percent 

 drop in the price of generation down to almost 25 mills - to where it is very 

 competitive with Bonneville's rates in addition, 5-year contracts, backed mainly 

 by existing surplus resources on the West Coast, are being offered at prices closer 

 to 20 mills The recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking by the Federal Energy 

 Regulatory Commission regarding restructuring of the industry and open access 

 for transmission systems will only add to the competitiveness of this market 



Could you please describe how Bonneville's customers currently view it as 

 a power supplier'' 



Answer In 1993, Bonneville conducted a customer satisfaction survey of 

 all of its customers When asked about their overall satisfaction with Bonneville, 

 about 60 percent said they were satisfied, the other 40 percent indicated 

 dissatisfaction with Bonneville Reasons volunteered for being dissatisfied with 

 Bonneville focused primarily on poor customer service and negative comments 

 about Bonneville's cumbersome processes Some customers said that customers' 

 best interests are not considered, that Bonneville is not responsive and not 

 "customer-driven" They commented that Bonneville's processes were too 

 bureaucratic and too process-oriented, and not sufficiently results-oriented In 

 fact, 65 percent of our customers indicated that they were dissatisfied with 

 Bonneville's processes Bonneville's customers also consistently rated their 

 satisfaction with Bonneville far below their idea of an "excellent" power supplier 

 on the attributes of reliability, responsiveness, empathy, and assurance 



