Southwestern Power Administration; Robert D. Willis Hydropower Project-Rate Order No. SWPA-88

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY <SUBJECT>Southwestern Power Administration; Robert D. Willis Hydropower Project—Rate Order No. SWPA-88</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Southwestern Power Administration, DOE. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of rate order. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Acting Administrator of the Southwestern Power Administration (Southwestern) has confirmed, approved and placed into effect on an interim basis Rate Order No. SWPA-88 (Rate Order), which provides the rate schedule <E T="03">Wholesale Rates for Hydro Power and Energy at Robert D. Willis Hydropower Project</E> (RDW-23). This new rate schedule for the Robert D. Willis Hydropower Project (Robert D. Willis) replaces the existing power rate under Rate Schedule RDW-15 which expires on September 30, 2025. Rate Schedule RDW-23 increases the annual wholesale power rate for Willis by 28.6 percent. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The effective period for the rate schedule specified in Rate Order No. SWPA-88 is October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2027, pending confirmation and approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on a final basis, or until superseded. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ms. Fritha Ohlson, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Southwestern Power Administration, (918) 595-6684 or <E T="03">fritha.ohlson@swpa.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> On June 15, 2016, FERC confirmed and approved Rate Schedule RDW-15 under Rate Order No. SWPA-70 on a final basis through September 30, 2019. Rate Schedule RDW-15 was subsequently extended through September 30, 2025. Southwestern published a <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice (Proposed FRN) on May 16, 2025 (90 FR 21029), proposing to increase the annual rate by approximately 28.6 percent from $1,282,836 to $1,650,648. The Proposed FRN also initiated a 30-day public consultation and comment period. No written comments were received. Following review of the proposal, Rate Order No. SWPA-88, which provides the rate for the hydro power and energy from Robert D. Willis Hydropower Project, is hereby confirmed, approved, and placed into effect on an interim basis. Southwestern will submit Rate Order No. SWPA-88 to FERC for confirmation and approval on a final basis. <HD SOURCE="HD1">UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Department of Energy</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Acting Administrator, Southwestern Power Administration</HD> <FP SOURCE="FP-1"> <E T="03">In the matter of:</E> Southwestern Power Administration), Robert D. Willis Hydropower Project Rate Schedule, Rate Order No. SWPA-88 </FP> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Order Confirming, Approving, and Placing Increased Power Rate Schedule in Effect on an Interim Basis (   )</HD> Pursuant to sections 301(b) and 302(a) of the Department of Energy Organization Act, 42 U.S.C. 7151(b) and 7152(a), the functions of the Secretary of the Interior and the Federal Power Commission under Section 5 of the Flood Control Act of 1944, 16 U.S.C. 825s, relating to the Southwestern Power Administration (Southwestern), were transferred to, and vested in the Secretary of Energy. By Delegation Order No. S1-DEL-RATES-2016, effective November 19, 2016, the Secretary of Energy delegated: (1) the authority to develop power and transmission rates to Southwestern's Administrator; (2) the authority to confirm, approve, and place such rates into effect on an interim basis to the Deputy Secretary of Energy; and (3) the authority to confirm, approve, and place into effect on a final basis, or to remand or disapprove such rates, to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). By Delegation Order No. S1-DEL-S3-2024, effective August 30, 2024, the Secretary of Energy also delegated the authority to confirm, approve, and place such rates into effect on an interim basis to the Under Secretary for Infrastructure. By Redelegation Order No. S3-DEL-SWPA1-2023, effective April 10, 2023, the Under Secretary for Infrastructure redelegated the authority to confirm, approve, and place such rates into effect on an interim basis to the Southwestern Administrator. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> On December 17, 2015, in Rate Order No. SWPA-70, the Deputy Secretary of Energy placed into effect the current Robert D. Willis Hydropower Project (Robert D. Willis) rate schedule (RDW-15) on an interim basis for the period January 1, 2016, to September 30, 2019. FERC confirmed and approved RDW-15 on a final basis on June 15, 2016, for a period ending September 30, 2019. On September 22, 2019, in Rate Order No. SWPA-76, the Assistant Secretary for Electricity extended RDW-15 for two years, for the period of October 1, 2019, through September 30, 2021. On August 30, 2021, in Rate Order No. SWPA-79, the Administrator, Southwestern, extended RDW-15 for two years, for the period of October 1, 2021, through September 30, 2023. On September 25, 2023, in Rate Order No. SWPA-83, the Administrator, Southwestern, temporarily extended RDW-15 for one year, for the period of October 1, 2023, through September 30, 2024. On September 13, 2024, in Rate Order No. SWPA-86, the Administrator, Southwestern, temporarily extended RDW-15 for one year, for the period of October 1, 2024, through September 30, 2025. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion</HD> Southwestern's current rate schedule for the Robert D. Willis isolated rate system, RDW-15, is based on the 2015 Power Repayment Studies (PRS). Each subsequent annual PRS from 2016 through 2022 indicated the need for a revenue adjustment within a plus or minus five percent range of the current revenue estimate. It is Southwestern's practice for the Administrator to defer, on a case-by-case basis, revenue adjustments that are within plus or minus five percent of the revenue estimated from the current rate schedule. Therefore, the Administrator deferred revenue adjustments annually for Robert D. Willis through 2022. Southwestern prepared a 2023 Current PRS which indicated that the existing power rate would not satisfy present financial criteria regarding repayment of investment within a 50-year period due to increased operations and maintenance expenses as well as increased cost of replacements in the hydroelectric generating facilities. The 2023 Revised PRS indicates the need for an increase in annual revenues of $367,812 (28.6 percent) is necessary to accomplish repayment in the required number of years. Accordingly, Southwestern has prepared a new proposed rate schedule (RDW-23) based on the additional revenue requirement to ensure repayment. Southwestern conducted the rate adjustment proceeding in accordance with title 10, part 903, subpart A of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR part 903), “Procedures for Public Participation in Power and Transmission Rate Adjustments and Extensions.” Opportunities for public review and comment during a 30-day period on the proposed Robert D. Willis power rate were announced by a <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice published on May 16, 2025 (90 FR 21029), with written comments due June 16, 2025. Southwestern published the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice, the proposed rate schedule, and the draft 2023 PRS on its website for interested parties to review and comment upon during the public comment period. Following the conclusion of the comment period on June 16, 2025, Southwestern finalized the Power Repayment Studies and Rate Schedule RDW-23 for the proposed annual rate of $1,650,648 which is the lowest possible rate needed to satisfy the repayment criteria set forth within the provisions of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Order No. RA 6120.2. This rate represents an annual increase of 28.6 percent. The Acting Administrator made the decision to approve the rate proposal for implementation. Southwestern will continue to perform its Power Repayment Studies annually, and if the 2025 results should indicate the need for additional revenues, another rate adjustment proceeding will be conducted to implement the updated revenue requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comments and Responses</HD> Southwestern did not receive any written comments during the 30-day public review and comment period. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Availability of Information</HD> Information regarding the rate adjustment proceeding, including the Final 2023 PRS and Rate Proposal, for Rate Schedule RDW-23 is available for public review in the offices of Southwestern Power Administration, 6655 S Lewis Ave, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74136. Rate Schedule RDW-23 is available on Southwestern's website at <E T="03">www.energy.gov/swpa/rates-and-repayment.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Certification of Rates</HD> I have certified that the provisional rate under Rate Schedule RDW-23 is the lowest possible rate consistent with sound business principles. The rate was developed following administrative policies and applicable laws. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Ratemaking Procedure Requirements</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Environmental Compliance</HD> Southwestern has determined that this action fits within the following categorical exclusions listed in appendix B to subpart D of 10 CFR 1021.410: B4.3 (Electric power marketing rate changes). Categorically excluded projects and activities do not require preparation of either an environmental impact statement or an environmental assessment. A copy of the categorical exclusion determination is available on Southwestern's website at <E T="03">www.energy.gov/swpa/southwestern-power-administration.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Determination Under Executive Order 12866</HD> Southwestern has an exemption from centralized regulatory review under Executive Order 12866; accordingly, no clearance of this notice by the Office of Management and Budget is required. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Submission to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission</HD> R ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 14k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━