SPP said Friday that a planned expansion into the West has attracted another potential member in the Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP).
The grid operator, which has launched two other services in the Western Interconnection since 2019, said it received a letter from CRSP expressing interest in evaluating membership in the RTO. A member of the Western Area Power Administration, the utility joins five other entities that have already asked SPP to provide information about RTO membership services in the West.
CSRP already participates in both of SPP’s contract-based Western services: Western Reliability Coordination and the Western Energy Imbalance Service (WEIS) market. It joins Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Deseret Power Electric Cooperative, the Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska (MEAN), Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, and WAPA’s Upper Great Plains-West and Loveland Area Projects, which reached out to SPP in November. (See Western Utilities Eye RTO Membership in SPP.)
The companies are currently working with SPP staff to evaluate the terms, costs and benefits of putting their Western facilities under the RTO’s tariff. As members, they would benefit from day-ahead wholesale electricity market administration, transmission planning, reliability coordination, resource adequacy and other services, the grid operator said.
Basin Electric, MEAN, Tri-State and WAPA’s UGP-East are already SPP members, having joined in 2015 when they placed their Eastern Interconnection facilities under the RTO’s tariff.
WAPA interim Administrator and CEO Tracey LeBeau said joining SPP’s exploratory effort is a “logical next step” for CRSP as it evaluates how to maintain relevance with its customers and communities.
“Any decision to move forward with final negotiations for SPP RTO membership for CRSP or any WAPA region will be consistent with our statutory requirements and involve the appropriate public processes,” she said.
“SPP already has a strong partnership and history of successful collaboration with WAPA. … This expression of interest from their CRSP is a welcome affirmation of our belief that the Western Interconnection stands to gain tremendous value through services like those we can provide them,” SPP CEO Barbara Sugg said.
The RTO said it expects its wholesale market, resource adequacy program and other regionalized services will help Western members reach their renewable energy goals and reinforce system reliability. Those joining SPP would receive $25 million in annual adjusted production cost savings and revenues from off-system sales, according to a Brattle Group study. Current members would realize $24 million in savings resulting from the expansion of SPP’s market, transmission network and generation fleet, according to the study. (See SPP Stakeholders Dig into WEIS Market Study.)
SPP gained a foothold in the West in 2019 with the rollout of its RC service. It successfully launched the WEIS in February.
