CAISO’s issuance of energy emergency watches and alerts in July came under conditions that mirrored those during California’s September 2022 heatwave.

 

The stars may not yet have aligned for CAISO in the contest to bring an organized electricity market to the West, but key industry players appeared to be doing just that at an ISO event to celebrate the progress of its Extended Day-Ahead Market.

CAISO scored a potentially important victory when the Balancing Authority of Northern California said it will pursue membership in the ISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market — and not SPP’s Markets+.

CAISO issued its first energy emergency alert of the summer after falling short on ramping capacity as solar output rolled off its system.  

The competition for organized markets in the West grew Friday as the Bonneville Power Administration launched a process to choose between day-ahead markets proposed by CAISO and SPP and regulators from five Western states urged the establishment of a new, independent RTO covering the entire West.

Western regulators heard from a power panel of CEOs on maintaining grid reliability in the face of fires, storms, extreme heat and supply chain disruptions.

Three new entities joined CAISO's Western Energy Imbalance Market, including El Paso Electric, which expanded the market into Texas for the first time.

A new CAISO stakeholder initiative aims to overhaul its interconnection process to deal with a flood of requests to connect renewable resources and storage.

The Energy Bar Association Western Chapter heard panelists and CAISO's CEO discuss rapidly evolving efforts to organize markets and an RA program in the West.