Description of the Colorado River Storage Project Power Features
The Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP) power features include five dams and associated generators, substations, and transmission lines. Glen Canyon Dam is located near Page, Arizona and is by far the largest of the CRSP projects. Glen Canyon consists of eight generators for a total of about 1300 MW, which is more than 70% of total CRSP generation. Flaming Gorge Dam is on the Green River, a major tributary of the Colorado River, and is located near Vernal, Utah. Flaming Gorge has three units producing about 132 MW of generation. The Aspinall Unit includes three dams and generating plants along the Gunnison River near Gunnison, Colorado. Blue Mesa is the first dam on the river and has two units producing about 97 MW. Morrow Point is the second dam in the series and consists of two generators producing a total of 146 MW. Crystal is the final dam and has one 32 MW generator. Morrow Point and Crystal Reservoirs allow some regulation of the river flow so that releases from Crystal can be used to regulate downstream flows as necessary.
The Rio Grande Project in New Mexico and the Colbran Project in Colorado are two small federal projects that were not part of CRSP but were operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and marketed by the Salt Lake City Area Office of the Western Area Power Administration. During the post-1989 marketing process, because they were uneconomical as “stand alone” projects, these two projects were integrated with CRSP into the Salt Lake City Area Integrated Projects (SLCA/IP) for marketing purposes.
