By Hudson Sangree
CAISO said Monday it had finalized agreements to provide reliability coordinator services, starting later this year, with 32 transmission operators and balancing authorities in the West.
The ISO expects to eventually have a total of 39 RC clients. Those that have finalized agreements include the Bonneville Power Administration, Arizona Public Service and PacifiCorp. (For a complete list, see CAISO’s website.)
“We are pleased with the progress made this past year to offer Reliability Coordinator services, and welcome our new participants,” CAISO President Steve Berberich said in a news release. “After a year of intensive planning and coordination, the ISO will now focus on developing technology and integrating systems to meet our July 1 implementation date.”
CAISO said it is moving forward to complete the NERC certification process led by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC).
CAISO won the majority of Western clients for its RC services after Peak Reliability decided last year to wind down its reliability coordinator services by the end of 2019. Peak is currently the RC for nearly all of the Western United States and parts of Canada and Mexico. (See RC Transition, California Wildfires Will Occupy 2019.)
Peak stunned the electricity sector in July when it announced it would end its RC role and withdraw from its effort to develop a regional electricity market competing with CAISO. (See Peak Reliability to Wind Down Operations.) The Vancouver, Wash.-based company said it would shut its doors as early as Dec. 31, 2019, after transitioning its customers to other RCs.
Several months before the announcement, CAISO, a Peak RC customer, said it would “reluctantly” leave Peak, develop its own RC services and offer them to others at reduced costs. CAISO’s move was seen as a reaction to Peak entering a partnership with PJM to form a Western RTO to compete with the ISO’s expansion.
CAISO, SPP and BC Hydro decided to fill the role left behind by Peak. Most of the Western Interconnection signed nonbinding letters of intent to take advantage of CAISO’s RC services. (See CAISO RC Wins Most of the West.)
In November, FERC approved a set of Tariff revisions covering CAISO’s new RC services, clearing the way for about 72% of the region’s load to sign on with the RTO, compared with 12% for SPP. BC Hydro is proceeding with plans to provide RC services for its own territory in British Columbia, representing about 7% of load in the region overseen by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council.
The transition of RC services is scheduled to be phased in this year, with CAISO assuming responsibility for California and part of northern Mexico on July 1. BC Hydro will become the RC for a large swath of western Canada on Sept. 2. CAISO will then take over RC services for many areas outside of California on Nov. 1, while SPP will take responsibility for other regions of the West on Dec. 3.