Southwest Power Pool Secures Western Market Commitments for Second Phase of Markets+ Program

Southwest Power Pool on Feb. 14 announced it has received commitments adequate to support the funding essential for the second phase of its Markets+ development, following the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s approval of the Markets + tariff on Jan. 16, 2025. SPP is the grid operator for 17 states in the central and western U.S.

Markets+ is a real-time and day-ahead market that is expected to launch in the West in 2027. The approval permits participants to begin phase two of Markets+ development following the execution of phase-two funding commitments. The grid operator announced the service in 2022 to centralize day-ahead and real-time unit commitment and dispatch, offer barrier-free transmission service across its footprint, and facilitate reliable integration of an expanding fleet of renewable generation.

SPP completed and filed the Markets+ with the commission in March 2024. The commission requested more information thereafter on explicit tariff elements, to which SPP replied in September. The approval indicates SPP sufficiently addressed most of those deficiencies. In anticipation of the commission’s approval of the market’s terms and conditions, SPP continued to facilitate work between potential market participants to create clear, well defined and robust procedures that will outline the service’s administration and operationality.

The $150 million in implementation expenditures will be funded by SPP and recovered throughout the market operations of Markets+. During phase two of Markets+ development, stakeholders and staff will work together to create the systems required to operate the market, carry out market trials and parallel processes.

In approving the tariff, FERC found that  Markets+ has the potential to yield a range of benefits to market participants and customers in the Western Interconnection and will make more efficient use of the transmission capability and generation resources of participants. The initiative is expected to provide important economic and reliability benefits to market participants, while helping them manage the impact of increasing levels of variable energy resources, load growth, and extreme weather events in the region.