Markets+ to Offer Transitional Real-time Market in 2024

SPP said Monday that it will implement major components of the governance structure of its planned Markets+ service next year and also explore launching in 2024 a transitional real-time balancing market, similar to its Western Energy Imbalance Service (WEIS) market.

The RTO said that by establishing its Markets+ governance framework in 2023, it will ensure stakeholders have a formal structure that enables “robust” input and provides independent oversight of market development and implementation.

Markets+ stakeholders will gather in Westminster, Colo., next week to review the final draft of the service offering. That will serve as the basis for the Markets+ tariff and guide the real-time service offering’s development, which has a targeted go-live date of June 2024. The day-ahead component will be developed at the same time and launched as soon as possible.

SPP CEO Barbara Sugg said that standing up the Markets+ governance framework quickly will let “stakeholders collaborate to build a strong foundation for a market that meets the needs of the West.”

The RTO plans to create a Markets+ seams working group to facilitate transfers between its participants, CAISO and other Western utilities.

SPP began administering the WEIS market on a contract basis in February 2021, centrally dispatching energy from participating resources every five minutes. Market participants do not need to be members of the RTO.

The grid operator also said Powerex has indicated it will fully participate in funding development of Markets+ and join the market when it goes live. Powerex, Canadian utility BC Hydro’s marketing and trading subsidiary, said the market’s inclusive and independent governance framework, supported by a neutral market operator and independent board of directors, was the primary reason behind its decision.

Powerex is one of 11 Western entities that have declared their intent to participate in the next phase of Markets+ development. (See 4 Arizona Entities Commit to Developing SPP’s Markets+.)

Meteorologist: ‘Crazy Weather’ this Winter

The SPP footprint can expect colder than normal conditions across the Northern Plains this winter but milder conditions to the south, a meteorologist told SPP staff and market participants Wednesday.

As if to illustrate the point, James Bryant, a meteorologist for KATV in Little Rock, Ark., was speaking as a winter storm bore down on North Dakota with blizzard conditions that could drop as much as a foot of snow on the state and with wind gusts as strong as 55 miles per hour.

“I expect quite a bit of crazy weather over the course of the next three months. This is kind of our busiest season, and you guys know that all too well,” Bryant said during SPP’s annual winter preparedness workshop.

Bryant said this winter will be a triple-dip La Niña — the third straight year of La Niña conditions, which will result in highly variable weather if history is any indication. He said triple-dips in 1956, 1975 and 2000 all had high month-to-month variability.

“You can get some extremes on both ends of the spectrum,” he said. Bryant cautioned his audience not to expect a repeat of the February 2021 winter storm, which he called a “once-in-a-generation kind of thing.”

Staff said SPP has about 17 GW of excess capacity to meet its highest demand expectations. They included data from last year’s winter storm to make their modeling as realistic as possible and reviewed the operational and communications changes they have made since the storm.

Attendees also heard from the Natural Gas Supply Association’s David Attwood, who said winter gas production is 4% higher than last year at 104 billion cubic feet/day.

Summer SOM Report Released

SPP’s Marketing Monitoring Unit quarterly state of the market report for this summer found the average hourly load was 6% above summer 2021, driven primarily by increased temperatures. Load was up during June, July and August.

Day-ahead prices were up 124% to $74.63/MWh this summer, from $33.30/MWh last summer. Real-time prices also jumped to $69.65/MWh this year, a 127% increase from $30.68/MWh last year.

Gas prices hit a new all-time high for the Integrated Marketplace when they spiked to $8.03/MMBtu in August. Gas prices have only been higher during the February 2021 winter storm. Average gas prices at the Panhandle Eastern hub were $7.31/MMBtu during the summer.

The quarterly report includes in its special issues section an initial review of the recently implemented ramp capability product.

The Monitor will host a webinar to discuss the summer report at 10 a.m. on Nov. 11.

SPP’s Monitor has also posted a pair of white papers on virtual activity during last year’s winter storm and transmission congestion rights funding in SPP.

The virtual activity report highlights shifts in virtual behavior and presents an analysis of market re-runs designed to assess the effect virtual positions had on price convergence, total production cost and total market convergence.

The TCR funding report explains the drivers behind their funding in both theory and practice and explores the potential implications of underfunding on asset prices and participant behavior.