SPP’s effort to stand up the Western Energy Imbalance Service market is on budget and on schedule, the grid operator’s staff told the Western Markets Executive Committee last week.
“It’s going to take all of us to make that happen,” SPP’s David Kelley, director of seams and market design, told the WMEC during a conference call Thursday. “Understand when we’re pushing you and you’re pushing us, it’s to keep us marching to the same objective, and that’s to get the market up and running.”
SPP plans to begin operating the WEIS in February 2021. Modeled on the Energy Imbalance Market the RTO operated from 2007 to 2014, the WEIS has attracted eight participants. (See SPP Board OKs $9.5M to Build Western EIS Market.)
Kelley said that while the overall market development project’s status is yellow because some tasks are behind schedule, the project’s end date is “not in jeopardy.”
“We’ve been able to make up lots of lost ground we had early in the project,” Kelley said. “I’m still comfortable with where we are. The delays in some of the tasks won’t affect the overall health of the program.”
SPP staff are currently testing the first markets release from its vendor and have taken delivery of two key software systems. They are also preparing for various system tests, with market trials scheduled for the month of October. Parallel operations are scheduled to begin Dec. 10.
Kelley said SPP has yet to fill five of the 13 positions necessary to run a Western markets desk in its operations center because the RTO’s two control rooms have been “basically” locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic to protect the operators, he said.
“We have ample time to get the desk stood up and tested,” Kelley said.
The pandemic has also caused a change in training WEIS participants. SPP originally planned for in-person training in July but has now shifted to virtual, instructor-led classes.
FERC Finds SPP’s WEIS Tariff Deficient
FERC on April 20 issued a letter notifying SPP that its proposed WEIS Tariff, Western joint dispatch agreements and WMEC charter are deficient and requested additional information for the filings (ER20-1059, ER20-1060).
The commission asked for a response to 12 different categories by June 4, throwing into doubt SPP’s original requested effective date of May 21. The RTO filed the Tariff and other documents in February.
FERC asked SPP to break down the six categories of costs included in both its projected $9.5 million implementation costs and its ongoing administrative costs to be recovered through the WEIS rate. The RTO has proposed a WEIS rate of 22 cents/MWh of net energy for load, based on an estimated annual $5 million operating cost. That number includes the annualized payback of implementation costs.
FERC also asked SPP to explain why using its Integrated Marketplace market power mitigation thresholds are appropriate for the WEIS. The RTO said the market will be subject to market power monitoring and mitigation performed by its Market Monitoring Unit.
The proposed Tariff includes provisions for demand response and notes that aggregators of retail customers “shall be treated comparably to other market participants offering resources.” FERC said there was no mention of compensation for DR resources and asked the RTO to clarify whether those resources would be compensated at LMP like other participants; “if not, please explain how they will be compensated and why.”
