Sufficient energy available for summer, Southwest Power Pool reports

Southwest Power Pool (SPP) said it anticipates having enough energy to meet demand across its 15-state region for the summer of 2023.

During SPP’s 2023 Summer Seasonal Assessment on during its May 18 2023 Preparedness Workshop and Emergency Communications User Forum, the company said its analysis for electric reliability for the coming summer shows enough generating capacity for June to September. The company said its analysis considered factors like historical and future electricity use, weather forecasts, the variability of available wind energy, drought conditions and generation and transmission outages.

“Ensuring there is enough capacity available to meet the needs of our customers is our most important role as a regional transmission organization, reliability coordinator and balancing authority for our region,” Senior Vice President of Operations Bruce Rew said. “While our summer assessment didn’t raise any reliability concerns, we continue to plan for exceptional operational circumstances and work closely with our members to prepare for any possibility. We monitor the grid and make changes as necessary to responsibly and economically keep the lights on.”

According to the company, the 2023 Summer Season Assessment anticipates the region will see normal conditions, and that there is a 99.5 percent probability the company will have sufficient resources to handle the load during peak hours. The company said that even if peak use exceeds forecasts by as much as 5 percent, the company still has a 95 percent probability to meet energy needs.

The company said it has systems, tools and procedures in place to mitigate risks and maintain electric reliability even under extreme weather, unexpected outages and other circumstances, including calling on generating units to run earlier or more often than usual, delaying planned outages, importing energy from neighboring systems or tapping into available reserves.