Press Releases
Southwest Power Pool board outlines 2019 goals, approves new rate schedules and endorses 2018 transmission planning report
At the Jan. 29 Southwest Power Pool (SPP) Board of Directors and Members Committee meeting in New Orleans, stakeholders got a preview of the organization’s primary goals for the upcoming year, elected several new representatives, approved the preliminary design of mechanisms to modernize SPP’s cost-recovery processes and endorsed a list of proposed transmission upgrades to be constructed over the next five years.
Read MoreSouthwest Power Pool elects Susan Certoma and Darcy Ortiz to board of directors
On Oct. 30, Southwest Power Pool (SPP), a regional power grid operator that ensures access to reliable and affordable electricity, held its quarterly board meeting and annual meeting of members in Little Rock, Arkansas. SPP’s members elected Darcy Ortiz of Phoenix, Arizona, and Susan Certoma of New York City to the company’s board of directors. They will replace former board chairman Jim Eckelberger and former vice chairman Harry Skilton, who will transition to emeritus roles and continue to advise the board. The appointments are effective Jan. 1, 2019.
Read MoreSouthwest Power Pool, Little Rock School District partner to enhance STEM education for local students
LITTLE ROCK, ARK. - Southwest Power Pool (SPP), a Little Rock-based grid operator in the electric utility industry, wants to ensure students in its community have every opportunity to pursue rewarding careers in technical fields without leaving their home state. SPP has joined with the Little Rock School District (LRSD) to bolster science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education beginning with elementary school students districtwide.
Read MoreSummer 2018 Quarterly State of the Market Report highlights energy prices, decline in congestion
The Southwest Power Pool (SPP) Marketing Monitoring Unit (MMU) has released its Quarterly State of the Market Report for the summer 2018 period, which covers June through August 2018.
Read MoreSPP to provide RC service for numerous western utilities beginning in late 2019
Southwest Power Pool (SPP) proudly welcomes recent commitments by a number of western utilities to receive its Reliability Coordinator (RC) services when they launch in late 2019. Having served as an RC in the Eastern Interconnection for more than two decades, SPP will ensure the reliability of the bulk electric system in the west on behalf of ...
Read MoreSPP’s westward growth continues with administration of congestion-management plan
As Southwest Power Pool (SPP) continues negotiations to provide reliability coordination in the Western Interconnection, on Aug. 20 it took another step in the westward expansion of its services. A group of six utilities have selected SPP to administer the Western Interconnection Unscheduled Flow Mitigation Plan (WIUFMP), a blueprint for the use of certain controllable devices in the mitigation of congestion along transmission lines in the west.
Read MoreSPP opens lines of communication with western reliability-coordination customers with new stakeholder forum
Following its June 5 announcement that SPP would look to provide reliability-coordination services in the Western Interconnection, the regional transmission organization (RTO) and North American Reliability Corporation (NERC)-certified Reliability Coordinator (RC) convened Aug. 2 with interested parties at the first meeting of its new Western Reliability Working Group (WRWG).
Read MoreSPP board directs construction of high-voltage transmission projects in 6 states, discusses growth in the west, hears stakeholder reports
More than a hundred of Southwest Power Pool’s (SPP) members and stakeholders gathered in Omaha on July 31 for the regional transmission organization’s (RTO) quarterly board of directors and members committee meeting. Among other actions, the board approved the 2018 Integrated Transmission Plan Near-Term (ITPNT) Assessment, requiring SPP members to construct 13 new transmission projects in six states over the next five years, at an estimated total investment of $47 million. These upgrades are expected to resolve 101 anticipated reliability needs on the electric grid, resulting primarily from increased electric consumption expected in certain areas of the region and from announced generation retirements in eastern Kansas and western Missouri.
Read MoreSpring 2018 Quarterly State of the Market Report highlights load changes, energy prices and auction revenue rights
The Southwest Power Pool (SPP) Marketing Monitoring Unit (MMU) has released its Quarterly State of the Market Report for the spring 2018 period, which covers March through May 2018. Highlights for the period include:
• Higher load due to lower than normal temperatures in March and April, and much higher than normal temperatures in May.
• Energy prices remained low, with spring prices averaging around $23/MWh.
• Decrease in intervals that experienced negative energy prices.
• A discussion of auction revenue rights is included in the special issues section of the report.
SPP to provide reliability-coordination service in the west
Southwest Power Pool (SPP) looks to bring its experience as a time-tested grid operator to the Western Interconnection with plans to offer reliability-coordination (RC) services there beginning in late 2019. SPP has indicated its intent to serve as an RC in the west in letters to the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). Twenty-eight western utilities — representing approximately 200 terawatt-hours of net energy for load — have already signed letters of intent expressing interest in SPP’s RC services.
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