By Hudson Sangree

Leaders of CAISO and its Western Energy Imbalance Market established a panel last week to update the EIM’s governance as the real-time market grows and likely adds day-ahead bidding in the next few years.

The mission of the new Governance Review Committee (GRC) is to go through a stakeholder process, draft proposals and offer the EIM Governing Body and the CAISO Board of Governors a set of recommendations in less than a year.

The committee members must still be selected. Once that happens, “we expect that the committee will get started right away, and we hope to have a work product completed within the next six to 12 months,” CAISO Regional Affairs Manager Peter Colussy told Friday’s joint meeting of the ISO and EIM boards in Salt Lake City.

The committee will disband once it completes its work, Colussy said.

The EIM began operations in 2014. It allows wholesale energy transfers across state lines to balance supply and demand in the Western Interconnection, saving its participants more than $650 million so far, according to CAISO.

The market’s charter requires a governance review to be initiated by September 2020 “to account for accumulated experience and changed circumstances over time” in the relatively new market, Colussy said. “The committee’s form and purpose will be similar to that of the transitional committee that formed the initial EIM governance structure just a few short years ago.”

Candidates for the 11 to 13 positions on the GRC will be nominated and ranked by current EIM participants, entities that intend to join, transmission owners, public utilities, generators and consumer advocates. Then CAISO and EIM board officials will select those to serve. It’s largely the same process used to select Governing Body members, Colussy said.

The committee will have one nonvoting member from the EIM body or the ISO board, and one voting member from the EIM Body of State Regulators (BOSR), each selected by their respective groups.

The GRC is expected to represent the geographic diversity of the EIM, Colussy said. The market currently includes eight entities from eight Western states, with more expected to join in the next three years.

“We’re not asking the members of the committee to represent the interests of the stakeholder sectors that nominated them,” he said. “Members are going to be asked to work collaboratively on this process to develop a proposal that will be widely accepted by stakeholders.”

The EIM Governing Body began talking with stakeholders and figuring out the review process late last year. (See Western EIM Looks to Expand its Authority.)

Those addressing the CAISO-EIM meeting Friday generally expressed support for the governance review, with some concerns.

Matt Lecar, a principal with Pacific Gas and Electric, said the utility supports the GRC. He thanked staff members for clarifying that “the scope of the committee would not be unduly constrained to look at just the existing governance model.”

“With the potential extension of the EIM from a real-time market to a day-ahead market, we believe that the both the volume of transactions and the scope of policy issues that will need to be addressed are considerably weightier, and that a degree of authority and oversight will be necessary that exceeds what we see in the EIM today,” Lecar said.

“It’s very important that participants across the region have trust in the institutions and the governance that we create,” he said.

New EIM Chair and Vice Chair

Following the joint session, the EIM Governing Body met for its general session and elected a new chair and vice chair, as it does each year.

Valerie Fong’s term as chair ended Sunday. Vice Chair Carl Linvill was named by his colleagues as the EIM’s chair starting Monday, and John Prescott was named vice chair.

“It has been an honor to be the chair of this body. It’s a great learning experience. It’s a lot of fun. And we try not to blow anything,” Fong said.

She nominated Linvill to take her place and nominated Prescott to fill Linvill’s position.

The board currently only has four of its five allotted members. Former member Kristine Schmidt resigned in April to join embattled PG&E Corp.’s board of directors. (See PG&E Departure Leaves EIM Vacancy.)