Southwest Power Pool Proposes Rules to Implement Western Power Market

The Southwest Power Pool Inc., the grid operator for 14 states in the central U.S., filed a tariff with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to implement its Western Energy Imbalance Service Market in 2021, according to a Feb. 21 news release. The market is designed to balance generation and load regionally and in real time.

The market, proposed in June, aims to create opportunities for participants to utilize diverse generating resources, optimize their use of the transmission system and lower costs to their end-use customers. The proposed market will compete with the California Independent System Operator Corporation’s Western Energy Imbalance Market, or EIM, which has continued to expand since its launch in November 2014.

The tariff defines the rules and obligations for market participants and for SPP as the market operator. SPP requested the commission to issue an order by May 21, accepting the proposed rate schedule tariff to become effective on Feb. 1, 2021.

Last December, SPP launched its western reliability coordination service for almost a dozen western entities, becoming the first regional transmission organization to provide the service in both the Eastern and Western Interconnections.