Business & Finance

Kujala named director of power planning for Northwest Power and Conservation Council

Ben Kujala has been named director of power planning for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, replacing Tom Eckman who retired in July.
Kujala named director of power planning for Northwest Power and Conservation Council

Ben Kujala has been named director of power planning for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, replacing Tom Eckman who retired in July.

Kujala has been acting director since April.

He joined NWPCC in 2013 as a senior analyst and recently led the redevelopment of the Regional Portfolio Model for the Seventh Power Plan. He coordinated efforts to link multiple power system models into a cohesive analytical framework for the plant, which the council revises every five years. The plan is implemented by the Bonneville Power Administration and forecasts future demand for electricity and assigns low-cost, low- or no-carbon generating resources and energy efficiency improvements to meet that demand.

Before joining NWPCC, Kujala was an operations research analyst for BPA, where he worked on the long-term adequacy implications of wind generation, electricity market price forecasting, Federal Columbia River Power System operations, and evaluating the benefits of a Northwest Power Pool energy imbalance market.

Kujala has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in statistics from Portland State University.

NWPCC was established in 1980 to preserve the benefits of the Columbia River for future generations.

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