Southwest Power Pool launches Western Energy Imbalance Services market
Southwest Power Pool (SPP), a regional transmission organization that manages the electric grid across 17 central and western U.S. states, launched its Western Energy Imbalance Services (WEIS) market on Feb. 1.
The real-time balancing market is expected to lower wholesale electricity costs, increase price transparency, and mitigate congestion on the transmission system for market participants.
“This is an exciting step for SPP and our new market participants in the west. Our electricity markets have played a big role in lowering costs, integrating renewables, and enhancing reliability in the east, and we’re excited to see a new part of the country begin to see similar benefits,” SPP President and CEO Barbara Sugg said. “I’m hopeful this is just the beginning of valuable partnerships between SPP and western utilities that will help them, and the customers they serve, meet their financial, reliability, and renewable-energy goals.”
Several regional utilities are participating in the market, including Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Deseret Power Electric Cooperative, the Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska (MEAN), Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), and the Wyoming Municipal Power Agency.
“Joining the WEIS real-time market brings us a step closer to attaining a secure and reliable energy future,” WAPA Administrator and CEO Mark Gabriel said. “The advances we are experiencing today in generation, energy demand, and transmission are fundamentally changing and complicating the day-to-day operations of the electric grid beyond what the current system was designed to accommodate. We have said for years that markets are coming to the West. We are now realizing those predictions across the interconnection first in the form of energy imbalance markets, which will benefit our customers and their consumers by meeting real-time fluctuations in demand with diverse, reliable, and affordable energy delivered as efficiently as possible.”
As the WEIS market’s administrator, SPP will support the reliability of the region’s transmission system and meet demand with the most cost-effective generation available. The goal is to reduce wholesale electricity costs for participants.
“With a low cost of entry, immediate economic benefits, and greater market experience for Tri-State, the WEIS delivers real benefits to our members,” Duane Highley, Tri-State CEO, said. “Importantly, the five-minute WEIS intra-hour market will greatly aid in the integration of more renewable resources that empower Tri-State’s clean energy transition. This is an important first step toward a full RTO in this region to help Tri-State meet its clean energy goals.”
The real-time imbalance market is one of many services SPP offers to western utilities under its Western Energy Services umbrella.
