# Pensacola

SPP asset profile · https://askthegrid.com/assets/facilities/pensacola

Grand River Dam Authority - Mayes County - SPP

Pensacola Dam is a state-owned hydroelectric plant on the Grand (Neosho) River in Mayes County, Oklahoma, built between 1938 and 1940 and often cited as the world's longest multiple-arch dam. It impounds Grand Lake O' the Cherokees and is owned and operated by the Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA), an Oklahoma state agency created in 1935 as a conservation and reclamation district for the Grand River. The plant runs six conventional hydro units for a combined 129.6 MW nameplate capacity, all currently operating with no retirements scheduled. It is licensed by FERC as Project No. 1494; the license issued in 1992 expired in 2025, and GRDA has been in a multi-year FERC Integrated Licensing Process relicensing proceeding that has become entangled with a separate, long-running dispute over whether GRDA's operation of Grand Lake has caused chronic upstream flooding near Miami, Oklahoma. Output is settled into the Southwest Power Pool market at the plant's own PENSACOLA price nodes.

## Metrics

- **Nameplate capacity:** 129.6 MW — Canonical EIA plant baseline.
- **Registry anchor:** Plant 2981 — plant-2981

## Facts

- **Technology:** Conventional Hydroelectric
- **Operator:** Grand River Dam Authority

## Related parties

- **Owner / operator / asset manager:** Grand River Dam Authority — Owner and operator; FERC licensee ([source](https://grda.com/))
- **Regulator:** Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — Federal licensing and regulatory authority ([source](https://www.ferc.gov/))
- **Balancing authority / market operator:** Southwest Power Pool — Regional transmission organization and market operator ([source](https://www.spp.org/))
- **Owner:** State of Oklahoma — Owner of dam, impoundment, and associated lands

## Sources

- [grda.com](https://grda.com/floodwater-release-bulletin-135) — grda.com · public_source — Source retained for exact-record publication review.
- [grda.com](https://grda.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2022.12.29_GRDA-Response-to-Comments_Final.pdf) — grda.com · public_source — Source retained for exact-record publication review.
- [grda.com](https://grda.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/20221230-Pensacola-DLA-Exhibit-B-with-Appendices.pdf) — grda.com · public_source — Source retained for exact-record publication review.
- [grda.com](https://grda.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/20230530-Pensacola-FINAL-FLA-Exhibit-B.pdf) — grda.com · public_source — Source retained for exact-record publication review.
- [grda.com](https://grda.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/20230530-Pensacola-FINAL-FLA-Exhibit-C.pdf) — grda.com · public_source — Source retained for exact-record publication review.
- [grda.com](https://grda.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/20230530-Pensacola-FINAL-FLA-Exhibit-D.pdf) — grda.com · public_source — Source retained for exact-record publication review.

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Canonical page: https://askthegrid.com/assets/facilities/pensacola
Website: [Grand River Dam Authority](https://grda.com/)

Source: Ask the Grid — https://askthegrid.com/