What is UMPA?

It's not uncommon in discussions with the City Council or Provo City administrators to hear references to "UMPA." Even if you already know that it stands for the Utah Municipal Power Agency, you may not understand what they do and their connection to Provo.

Established in 1980, UMPA is a consumer owned corporation whose mission is to develop a reliable and economic power supply program to meet all the required electric power and energy needs of its member municipalities. There are currently six member municipalities – Levan, Manti, Nephi, Provo, Salem, and Spanish Fork.


UMPA's services include: power supply, control area support, scheduling, financing, energy load forecasting, transmission services, legislative and regulatory action, demand-side management, engineering, and legal assistance.

The objectives of UMPA are as follows:

1. Develop a reliable and economical power supply program to meet the electric power and energy needs as required by the members and their customers.
2. Provide the benefits of economies of scale through joint endeavors relating to generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power and energy.
3. Involve each member in the planning operating and developing stages undertaken by the Agency.

Interlocal Agreement

Provo City has been heavily involved in UMPA for 30+ years.  On December 1, 2015, the City Council passed a resolution authorizing and approving the amended and restated Interlocal Cooperation Agreement with UMPA. We are at a time when we need to look at future resources, and this is an important step in securing power for Provo for the next 50 years.

Some of the issues addressed by the interlocal agreement include:

• We are at a time when we need to look at the future and where the Agency will get the power for member agencies
• Incorporate changes in the state and federal laws
• Provide certain member agencies the ability to go with resources that other members may not be interested in
• Establish with clear language voting rights so all member agencies are aware
• Provide for a weighted vote on every vote (previously Provo has had to indicate when they wanted to perform a weighted vote)

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