CAISO’s first-quarter benefits report offers another footnote to the debate over the market’s role in the response to the January deep freeze that brought parts of the Northwest to the brink of rolling blackouts.
Although PacifiCorp formally committed to joining CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market, the utility is still voicing concerns about a competing day-ahead market, SPP’s Markets+, in a FERC filing.
Backers of the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative say they want to move quickly on first part of their proposed plan to shift CAISO’s governance to an independent entity.
PacifiCorp said it will sign an implementation agreement to join CAISO’s EDAM, making it the first entity to formally commit to either of the two day-ahead markets being offered in the West.
CAISO scored simultaneous victories in heavily contested territory after Portland General Electric and Idaho Power both signaled their intent to join the Extended Day-Ahead Market.
The West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative has secured commitments of financial support from 24 utilities and other electricity-sector organizations and expects that list to grow.
A dispute around the January cold snap that forced Northwest utilities to sharply increase electricity imports to meet surging demand has become a proxy for the broader day-ahead market contest between CAISO and SPP.
CAISO notched another victory in the competition to bring organized markets to the West when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s oversight board authorized the utility to prepare to join EDAM.
CAISO’s WEIM last year hit $5.05 billion in benefits for its members since its inception in 2014, continuing the positive trend of growth tied to an expanding Western footprint.
