SPP has appointed Jim Gonzalez as its new senior director of seams and Western services, in what will be a highly visible position in the RTO as it continues to develop Markets+ ahead of its expected launch in 2027. 

Gonzalez will take over a role held by Carrie Simpson since 2022, who in March was promoted to SPP’s vice president of markets. (See SPP Brings Back Ex-staffer to Develop Western Services.) 

“Jim has played a key role in the development and administration of SPP’s market services for over a decade,” Simpson said in an April 21 release announcing the appointment. “His extensive knowledge and leadership will be invaluable to SPP’s work in the West.”  

According to the release, Gonzalez “will direct the ongoing development and implementation of Markets+ … and other electricity services in partnership with SPP’s stakeholders,” as well as serve as the staff secretary for the Markets+ Participant Executive Committee (MPEC), the policymaking group representing the market’s participants. 

“I’m thrilled to be part of such a great team,” Gonzalez said. “SPP and its stakeholders have done a tremendous job developing affordable, reliable energy services, and I’m ready to build on that success to bring a market that delivers substantial value to the Western Interconnection.” 

According to his LinkedIn profile, Gonzalez joined SPP in 2008 as an engineer, worked his way through the ranks into management positions in real-time operations and currently is the RTO’s technical director of market policy and operations. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Arkansas. 

“Gonzalez is an expert in market and system operations and has held various positions at SPP contributing to market development and the reliability of the electric grid,” SPP said in the release. 

Gonzalez likely will lead the effort to tackle what industry participants expect to be a key challenge for the West as Markets+ is rolled out in parallel to CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM): how to deal with the politically complicated and physically noncontiguous seams running between the two markets. 

EDAM supporters have raised strong concerns about market seams. Markets+ backers — including the Bonneville Power Administration and Powerex — have played down the significance of the issue, calling it “manageable” while acknowledging the two market operators will have to address challenges. (See Seams Concerns Won’t Drive Day-ahead Market Decision, BPA Says.) 

SPP has pointed to its own experience in managing the seams between its market and those of its neighbors. (See SPP’s Experience with Seams Could Help Markets+.) 

But others have taken a more cautionary view. 

“This is a special situation that you’re going to have in the in the West,” Richard Doying, vice president at Grid Strategies, said during the April 9 meeting of the Regional Issues Forum, a stakeholder body for CAISO’s Western Energy Markets. “It will be difficult to deal with, just because we don’t have any good historical precedents for how we would deal with this — and that is, we have currently a noncontiguous market footprint.” 

“We don’t have any existing markets where the markets are disconnected and they’re in their own isolated zones without physical transmission connected,” Doying said of Markets+.