Increased discussion of a Western RTO is being driven by clean-energy mandates and state laws requiring transmission owners to join an organized market.

CAISO paused its WEIM EDAM effort last year but renewed it Wednesday amid a growing push for greater Western regionalization and market coordination.

An Oregon committee discussed how a Western RTO would likely take shape for reasons much different from those that motivated the other organized markets.

Major Western utilities plan to discuss coordinated market services and the possible formation of an organized market in an exploratory group.

A meeting to hash out an upcoming Oregon study on RTO membership turned to how the state’s participation might fit into other developments in the West.

Oregon’s Department of Energy is seeking input from power industry stakeholders to help produce a study that could convince lawmakers to obligate the state’s utilities to participate in an RTO.

Arizona has joined Colorado, Nevada and Oregon in exploring membership in an RTO in the Western Interconnection.

FERC Chairman Richard Glick says "the time is right for the states, the region’s utilities and other key stakeholders" to form one or more Western RTOs.

SPP CEO Barbara Sugg briefed WECC’s Board of Directors last week on the RTO’s efforts in the Western Interconnection and potential benefits for stakeholders there, including full membership in SPP’s proposed RTO West. SPP operates as a reliability coordinator in parts of the West and is helping the Northwest Power Pool develop a multistate resource …

Continue reading "SPP CEO Pitches WECC on Western Benefits"

The development of a single RTO covering the U.S. portion of the Western Interconnection could save $2 billion a year in energy costs by 2030, study says.