Portland General Electric (PGE) on July 2 formalized its commitment to join CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM), making it the second entity in the Western U.S. after PacifiCorp to sign an implementation agreement.
CAISO CEO Elliot Mainzer commented on PGE’s move in an announcement.
“Portland General Electric has been an excellent partner in our real-time electricity market and has been very engaged in our work with stakeholders to design the Extended Day-Ahead Market,” Mainzer said. “PGE’s formal commitment to join EDAM provides more positive momentum for building a fully integrated Western day-ahead market that will benefit all market participants and their customers.”
PGE serves 1.9 million customers in Oregon with a peak load of nearly 5,000 MW. The utility announced its intent to join EDAM in March, which will “enable greater access to lower-cost renewable energy resources that are available from a more geographically diverse system,” CAISO’s announcement said.
The implementation agreement, which CAISO and PGE signed June 28, marks an important step in efforts to shift the “joint” authority that the Western Energy Imbalance Market’s (WEIM) Governing Body shares with the ISO’s Board of Governors over WEIM and EDAM matters to “primary authority,” which would require FERC approval but not a change to California law.
Tariff provisions to make that change won’t be triggered until EDAM obtains implementation agreements from a “set of geographically diverse” WEIM participants representing load equal to or greater than 70% of CAISO balancing authority area annual load in 2022. (See Pathways Initiative to Act Fast on ‘Stepwise’ Governance Plan.)
Tariff Waiver Sought
In a related move, CAISO on July 1 filed with FERC for a limited tariff waiver to facilitate PGE’s entry into the market.
The ISO’s tariff requires that an EDAM implementation date not be less than six months or more than 24 months after the date the EDAM entity implementation agreement becomes effective. Because PGE isn’t expected to begin participating in EDAM until fall 2026, CAISO requested a limited tariff waiver from FERC to support the utility’s participation more than 24 months after the effective date of the agreement.
“The complexity of enabling PGE’s transmission and technology to work in a compatible manner with the CAISO systems may require additional efforts over a period of slightly longer than 24 months, meaning it is not possible for PGE to implement its participation as an EDAM entity until the fall of 2026,” the ISO said. “Granting the waiver will provide additional time to allow the CAISO and PGE to effectively synchronize and coordinate their onboarding and readiness activities with PacifiCorp’s spring 2026 schedule and vendor engagement activities.”
The ISO and PGE agreed to perform parallel implementation work with PacifiCorp. (See PacifiCorp Fully Commits to CAISO’s EDAM.)
“Keeping PGE and PacifiCorp on the same EDAM implementation schedule is more efficient and creates the opportunity for joint implementation meetings and workshops and early vendor engagement that would otherwise not be available,” CAISO said. “Granting this petition will benefit all customers participating in the day-ahead market by facilitating PGE’s participation in EDAM.”
