CAISO scored a geographically small but symbolically significant victory with the announcement that two Black Hills Energy subsidiaries will move to the ISO’s Western Energy Imbalance Market.

Participants in the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative face a busy meeting schedule this summer as the group’s leaders look to advance on parallel fronts to develop a Western “regional organization.”

SPP CEO Barbara Sugg warned the RTO’s board and stakeholders that the grid operator faces new and stronger headwinds, even as it met its corporate goals’ first-quarter milestones.

The West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative applied for the money in January in response to a DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement, seeking two tranches of $400,000 each to be disbursed over two years to help support the effort build an independent Western RTO.

Stakeholders have discussed the likelihood that there may be two day-ahead markets in the West, CAISO’s Extended Day-ahead Market and SPP’s Markets+ and/or RTO West.

SPP met a major milestone in its Western efforts as a Markets+ committee approved the day-ahead market’s proposed governing document.

Many at the joint conference focused on the eventual result of the contest between CAISO's Extended Day-Ahead Market and SPP's Markets+ to organize the West's electricity market.

Utility regulators from Oregon and California discussed their proposal for a new independent RTO covering the entire West for the first time publicly.

California Assemblymember Chris Holden said he will hold a bill that could eventually turn CAISO into an RTO while he tries to overcome opposition.