2023 Shultz Energy Fellowships: Western Area Power Administration

Regional-, state-, and city-level efforts are essential in our fight against climate change, especially in the field of energy. Stanford University is committed to helping by integrating its students into energy and climate ecosystems in the West through the Shultz Energy Fellowships program, an energy-related summer fellowship program for undergraduate and graduate students. 

Named in honor of former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, one of the most widely admired American public servants of the past half-century, the program offers a suite of paid, energy-related public service fellowships for Stanford students in California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, and Hawaii during the summer. 

The fellowships run from Monday, June 26, 2023 to Friday, September 1, 2023.

Office description: 

Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) is one of four power marketing administrations within the U.S. Department of Energy, whose role is to market and transmit wholesale electricity from multi-use water projects. Our service area encompasses a 15 state region of the central and western U.S. where our approximately 17,000 circuit mile transmission system carries electricity from 57 hydropower plants operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the International Boundary and Water Commission. ​ 

We wholesale this clean and carbon free power to preference customers such as Federal and state agencies, cities and towns, rural electric cooperatives, public utility districts, irrigation districts and Native American tribes. They, in turn, provide retail electric service to over 40 million of consumers in the West.  

WAPA recently finished a new strategic plan, PowerForward 2030, that was developed with our customers and employees that lays out the roadmap for safeguarding a sustainable energy future, modernizing the grid and investing in our employees.  Through this work, we will empower the thousands of communities we serve and partner with them to secure a resilient energy future.

Potential Projects:

The fellow will have an opportunity to identify interest in one or more of the following project areas:

• Organizational governance/PowerForward 2030 strategic initiatives
• Climate change/grid resiliency
• Grid/infrastructure security
• Transmission line project development
• Sustainability improvements
• Wildfire mitigation planning
• Value of hydropower campaign

The fellow would learn about the U.S. energy industry, the career paths available, build networks and relationships with industry subject matter experts as well as contribute to the economic and societal vitality for thousands of communities across WAPA’s 15 state territory.

For WAPA, a successful engagement would be to leverage the fellow’s curiosity, support developing his/her skills and knowledge of the industry and gain new perspective in advancing our mission and strategic objectives.

WAPA anticipates staff will have a flexible work policy for summer 2023. If this is the case, the fellow will have the option to work fully in-person, partially remote, or fully remote, with in-person work highly encouraged. WAPA has offices in the following locations:

• Folsom, California
• Salt Lake City, Utah
• Billings, Montana
• Watertown, South Dakota
• Lakewood, Colorado (HQ)
• Loveland, Colorado
• Phoenix, Arizona
• Washington DC

Potential Mentors:

• Vice president, director or similar level, dependent on project area(s) selected