Future participants in SPP’s RTO expansion into the Western Interconnection have affirmed their support to meet the April 1 go-live deadline with a unanimous vote of support.
SPP said in a March 12 news release that the decision to proceed as planned with the Western RTO expansion is a “strong signal of confidence” as the grid operator and its members complete their final system tests.
“April 1 will be a milestone day for SPP,” CEO Lanny Nickell said in a statement, noting the grid operator will be the first RTO to bridge the Eastern and Western grids.
The expansion marks the culmination of more than a decade of outreach and collaboration with Western entities. Those efforts have included the failed Mountain West Transmission Group, but also the Western Energy Imbalance Service (WEIS) market and Markets+, the latter of which is expected to be deployed in October 2027. (See Monroe’s Western Outreach Pays Dividends for SPP.)
The expansion will occur overnight March 31-April 1, when SPP will begin administering the regional transmission grid under its tariff for the following organizations:
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- Basin Electric Power Cooperative
- Colorado Springs Utilities
- Deseret Power Electric Cooperative
- Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska (MEAN)
- Platte River Power Authority
- Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association
- Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) regions: Upper Great Plains (UGP)-West, Colorado River Storage Project and Rocky Mountain.
Basin, MEAN, Tri-State and WAPA’s UGP-East region are already RTO members of SPP. All seven are also participating in the WEIS market.
The expansion began in 2020 when several utilities decided to explore RTO membership. A Brattle Group study found the move would be mutually beneficial and save $49 million annually.
SPP says its wholesale electricity market, resource adequacy program and other regionalized services can help Western members reach renewable energy goals; strengthen system reliability; and use new opportunities to buy, sell and trade power.
