SPP’s western market gains two new participants
Two more utilities will be participants of Southwest Power Pool’s Western Energy Imbalance Service (WEIS) Market when it launches in February 2021. The Wyoming Municipal Power Agency (WMPA) and Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska (MEAN) have announced they are joining SPP’s new contract service that will provide a real-time balancing market in the Western Interconnection.
“As the West was evaluating a market and other potential providers, MEAN has been supportive of SPP being the provider of choice due to its member-driven culture, where every member has a voice,” said MEAN Executive Director Bob Poehling. “As a current member of SPP, MEAN has seen the efficiencies that a market brings and looks forward to the benefits this will bring to the communities MEAN serves in Colorado, Western Nebraska and Wyoming.”
SPP launched its Western Reliability Coordination (RC) service just days ago, taking over responsibility for ensuring the reliability of the bulk electric system in the west on behalf of more than a dozen utilities. Along with its RC service, the WEIS is another component of SPP’s growing Western Energy Services family of contract-based products. Utilities do not have to be a member of the SPP regional transmission organization (RTO) to participate in these services.
Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, and the Western Area Power Administration previously announced their decisions to join the WEIS. When the market goes live in 2021, SPP will centrally dispatch energy from market participants to meet demand throughout the region every five minutes.
As SPP has proven through past performance as a market administrator, the WEIS will contribute to the reliability of the region’s transmission system and reduce wholesale electricity costs for participants by meeting demand with the most cost-effective generation available. SPP’s previous energy imbalance market went live in 2007 and provided participants with $103 million in benefits in its first year of operation.
About SPP: Southwest Power Pool, Inc. is a regional transmission organization: a nonprofit corporation mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure reliable supplies of power, adequate transmission infrastructure and competitive wholesale electricity prices on behalf of its members. SPP manages the electric grid across 17 central and western U.S. states and provides energy services on a contract basis to customers in both the Eastern and Western Interconnections. The company’s headquarters are in Little Rock, Arkansas. Learn more at SPP.org.