Learning Center

unbundled rates: Separate line-item charges for generation, transmission, distribution and other services.

unbundled services: The selling and pricing of services separately, as opposed to offering services "bundled" into packages with a single price for the whole package.

universal service: Electric service sufficient for basic needs (an evolving bundle of basic services) available to virtually all members of the population regardless of income. See obligation to serve.

variable cost: The total costs incurred to produce energy, excluding fixed costs which are incurred regardless of whether the resource is operating. Variable costs usually include fuel, maintenance and labor.

variable rate: A rate BPA uses for its aluminum producing customers; the rate fluctuates up and down with changes in the world price of aluminum.

vertical integration: An arrangement in which the same company owns all the different aspects of making, selling and delivering a product or service. In the electric industry, it refers to the historically common arrangement in which a utility owns its own generating plants, transmission system, and distribution lines to provide all aspects of electric service. See unbundling.

volt: The unit of measurement of electromotive force. It is equivalent to the force required to produce a current of one ampere through a resistance of one ohm.

water budget: A part of the Northwest Power Planning Council's Fish and Wildlife Program, calling for a specific amount of water to be released from reservoirs to augment streamflows during the downstream migration of juvenile salmon and steelhead.

watt: An electric unit of power or a rate of doing work (see kilowatt and megawatt).

wheeling: The use of the transmission facilities of one system to transmit power for another system.

wholesale power market: The purchase and sale of electricity from generators to resellers (who sell to retail customers) along with the ancillary services needed to maintain reliability and power quality at the transmission level.

wholesale wheeling: Selling generated electricity to wholesale buyers for them to resell to retail customers.