The Bonneville Power Administration’s commitment to fund the second phase of SPP’s Markets+ won’t be swayed by the departure of the executive leading the agency’s day-ahead market initiative, a BPA official told members of the Markets+ Participants Executive Committee (MPEC) in an Oct. 22 email obtained by RTO Insider.

The executive in question is BPA Director of Market Initiatives Russ Mantifel, who resigned effective Oct. 19, according to agency spokesperson Doug Johnson. Since July 2023, Mantifel has led the BPA’s intensive process to explore participation in a Western day-ahead market.

From day one, the effort spurred an increasingly contentious competition for participants between Markets+ and CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM), in large part because of BPA’s outsized importance in the Northwest electricity sector, where it controls more than 70% of the region’s transmission system and a massive amount of hydroelectric output.

Case in point: On the same day BPA kicked off its day-ahead markets process, a group of Western utility commissioners issued their letter establishing the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative to counter Markets+ by proposing a new organization to provide independent governance for CAISO’s EDAM and Western Energy Imbalance Market. (See Regulators Propose New Independent Western RTO.)

The competition between the respective camps supporting either market intensified in March when BPA staff released a report recommending that the agency choose Markets+ over EDAM. (See BPA Staff Recommends Markets+ over EDAM.)

That staff “leaning” was supported by most — but not all — of BPA’s customer base of publicly owned utilities and opposed by many environmental groups, Northwest utilities such as Portland General Electric, PacifiCorp and Seattle City Light, and all four Democratic U.S. senators representing Oregon and Washington. (See ‘Leaning’ Evident in BPA Response to NW Senators.)

In August, BPA said it would delay making its final decision on a market until May 2025. (See BPA Postpones Day-ahead Market Decision Until 2025.)

At the Oct. 22-24 fall joint meeting of the Committee on Regional Electric Power Cooperation and Western Interconnection Regional Advisory Body (CREPC-WIRAB), multiple attendees told RTO Insider they were surprised by both the timing and abruptness of Mantifel’s departure, in part because the agency is scheduled to hold its next day-ahead participation workshop Nov. 4.

BPA’s Johnson said Mantifel’s resignation was effective Oct. 19, but the reason was for Mantifel alone — and not BPA — to disclose. Mantifel could not be reached for comment.

Johnson also said BPA is working to put someone in Mantifel’s position temporarily in early November and then will begin the process to fill the position long term.

In the meantime, he said, any interested parties should contact BPA’s acting Chief Information Officer Nita Zimmerman or Vice President of Power Bulk Marketing Rachel Dibble about market-related issues.

In the email obtained by RTO Insider, it was Dibble who told MPEC members that while Mantifel’s resignation “does leave a gap in our staffing at BPA, I want to assure you that this does not impact our commitment to Markets+ development. We intend to fund Phase 2 and continue our public process working toward our final decision in May.”

BPA’s share of funding for that phase is estimated at $25 million, representing a 17.4% share, second only to Powerex’s 23.2% share. (See BPA to Fund Phase 2 of Markets+, Agency Exec Says.)

The MPEC will meet Nov. 12-13 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, near BPA’s headquarters.