PacifiCorp and Portland General Electric remain on track to join CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM) on their planned entry dates, although the schedule remains “very tight and very aggressive,” CAISO executives said during a stakeholder meeting.

“Things are going very smoothly,” CAISO Chief Information and Technology Officer Khaled Abdul-Rahman said during the Oct. 27 Western Energy Markets Regional Issues Forum (RIF) meeting. “We are going to be in market simulation for [PacifiCorp] until mid-January 2026, and our go-live is scheduled for May 1, 2026.”

PacifiCorp’s systems are being tested in EDAM’s market simulation phase, which is a critical step to ensure market features, rule changes and system upgrades are working as designed, CAISO said in a document on the subject.

CAISO in 2025 has held workshops to show how more complicated parts of EDAM will work, such as scheduling at interties, Abdul-Rahman said, and the ISO plans to hold more elaborate workshops on the subject in November.

“We have to make sure our existing market participants are comfortable with the changes,” Abdul-Rahman said. “And in terms of post-market implementation, the main challenge is preparing settlement data … this is the area that we are focusing on a lot because there are a lot of changes.”

CAISO is working specifically on implementation challenges associated with congestion revenue allocation, although these challenges are “not impacting our plan” to begin EDAM in 2026, Abdul-Rahman said. (See CAISO’s EDAM Scores Simultaneous Wins at FERC.)

While EDAM’s market simulation phase continues, PacifiCorp is transitioning from a five-day per week operation to a seven-day per week operation, Paul Wood, PacifiCorp director of portfolio optimization, said at the meeting.

“The big thing to stress is that there has to be a lot of continuous training, testing and development,” Wood said. “Getting employees trained to participate in the EDAM market while continuing to perform daily jobs is [important]. There’s been a lot of training for employees to get their tools ready for a total change … on May 1.”

Ensuring vendors and consultants are involved early helps clear up assumptions before they become problems, Wood added. And flexibility through the transition to EDAM is key, since market rules and designs will shift, he said.

PGE is on track to begin its EDAM market simulation phase in March 2026, complete the phase by June 2026, and then enter the EDAM on Oct. 1, 2026.

RIF Transition Update

RIF committee members proposed to move forward with the transition of the RIF into the Stakeholder Representatives Committee (SRC) to be established for the Regional Organization for Western Energy being developed by the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative, which eventually will assume governance of the EDAM and Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM). (See Pathways Co-chair Maps out ‘Enhanced’ Stakeholder Process for Western Markets.)

The timing and implementation approach for the transition need to be determined, and existing functions of the RIF need to continue in the meantime, committee members said. (See Pathways Initiative Clarifies Near-term Division of Labor with CAISO.)

One stakeholder asked the RIF committee to discuss the advantages of starting the SRC directly after ending the RIF, rather than including a transitional phase, so “folks can stand up and walk from one room to the other.”

Lindsey Schlekeway, NV Energy market policy manager and WEIM entity sector liaison, said many RIF stakeholders are the same stakeholders who will be in the SRC, so if “we can’t find a clear method for the transition, a lot of duplicative work would occur.”

“This is going to be a huge effort in order to stand up this new stakeholder committee, so we are just trying to find the most efficient and streamlined path,” Schlekeway said.