The Western Resource Adequacy Program (WRAP) Day-Ahead Market (DAM) Task Force is finalizing a concept paper that outlines proposed principles for the program under the West’s new market landscape. 

The task force held its fifth meeting Aug. 21 to continue discussions on how to update or optimize WRAP’s Operations Program to make it compatible with the soon-to-be-launched SPP Markets+ and CAISO Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM). WRAP was designed before the two markets completed their designs. (See WRAP Task Force Explores Optimization Under Day-ahead Markets.) 

The task force has until Sept. 10 to present the concept paper to WRAP’s Resource Adequacy Participants Committee (RAPC) to provide an update on the topics and proposals the group is considering. 

After submittal, the RAPC can provide advisory endorsement or recommendations on how the group should proceed. The RAPC will provide formal input after a final proposal has been presented, according to Michael O’Brien, WPP’s senior policy engagement manager for the WRAP. 

“Even though we have participants and task force members committed to different markets, they are collaborating on drafting mutually beneficial changes to the operations program, so this task force is a big opportunity to make improvements that everyone can agree on,” O’Brien said in an email to RTO Insider. 

“We seem to have consensus that we’re headed in the right direction,” O’Brien added. “We’ve identified the right topics — like holdback, energy deployment, settlements and energy delivery failures, processes that require fine-tuning to deliver the best results in the day-ahead market environment. We are having robust discussions. The concept paper is a work in progress, and we’re getting valuable input on both direction and technical details.” 

Under the program’s forward-showing requirement, participants must demonstrate they have secured their share of regional capacity needed for the upcoming season. Once WRAP enters its binding phase, participants with surplus must help those with a deficit in the hours of highest need. 

Much of the discussion on Aug. 21 concerned which entity should be responsible for energy delivery failure charges. The group agreed that surplus participants will retain responsibility for energy delivery failures within and between market-based operational subregions.  

Rebecca Sexton, director of reliability programs at WPP, said during the meeting that WRAP only assigns the obligation and provides the penalty incentive to deliver. The participants will figure out how to meet their obligations through their respective markets. 

“We have really tried to be very careful about drawing the line … it’s the obligation of the participant that we put the whole [responsibility] back on, but however it is that you get that energy there, that’s kind of out of scope of WRAP,” Sexton said. 

WRAP’s binding phase includes penalties for participants that enter a binding season with capacity deficiencies compared with their forward showing of resources promised for that season. 

In 2024, the binding phase was postponed by one year at the request of participants, who said they were facing challenges including supply chain issues, faster-than-expected load growth and extreme weather events that would make it difficult for them to secure enough resources to avoid penalties. The binding phase is now expected to start in summer 2027. (See WRAP Members Vote to Delay ‘Binding’ Phase to Summer 2027.) 

A final proposal from the task force could take several months. The proposal must also undergo a review and governance process with implementation slated for 2026, according to O’Brien.