WATTS UP October 2026: When the river runs low…so does the power

For more than 90 years, our communities have enjoyed a remarkable benefit: access to some of the West’s most affordable, reliable and flexible electricity generated by dams along the Colorado River. In fact, it was the completion of Hoover Dam in 1935 that first made utility-grade power possible for our valleys and which brought OPD5 into being.

Unfortunately, the river is having a very bad day. And that means our hydropower resources are having one, too.

The Colorado River system is experiencing some of the most challenging hydrologic conditions in its history. Years of drought have steadily reduced the water stored in Lake Mead, Lake Powell and other reservoirs. This year, an exceptionally dry winter has made an already difficult situation even worse.

The good news is that, since our founding, OPD5 has received relatively inexpensive hydropower from Colorado River dams. In recent years, these resources have amounted to approximately 23 percent of our overall power portfolio at an average cost of about $34 per megawatt-hour.

That is a pretty good deal — and one we certainly haven’t taken for granted.

But as reservoir levels fall, less water is available to run through the turbines. In other words, the same drought that is shrinking the lakes is also shrinking our supply of low-cost hydropower.

And when the river gives us less power, we have to find it somewhere else.

That “somewhere else” is the open energy market, where our current contract price is $88 per megawatt-hour — more than two-and-a-half times the cost of our hydropower resources.

Every megawatt-hour of inexpensive hydropower we lose has to be replaced with significantly more expensive resources. Our current market contract expires at the end of 2027. Given the cost pressures already evident throughout the energy industry, future replacement power could come at an even higher price.

None of this is welcome news. But it is important to understand why grim hydrology on the Colorado River can eventually show up on our electric bills here in OPD5 territory.

OPD5 is a not-for-profit utility with a straightforward mission: provide safe, reliable electricity at the lowest reasonable cost. We cannot control the weather, the river or the energy markets. But we can control how we respond. We will continue working to diversify our power portfolio, manage our costs carefully and plan ahead for the challenges we see coming.

The river may be running low. But OPD5 is not standing still.

To read the full October edition of our newsletter, or review past editions, click here.