One of the first items the yet-to-be-seated board of the Regional Organization for Western Energy could decide on is whether to administer a resource adequacy program, as backers seek to have a proposal in place later in 2026.
Members of ROWE’s temporary Formation Board discussed the potential of a new RA program at a March 19 meeting.
The discussion comes after non-CAISO participants in the ISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market announced they are designing a new RA program, with the hope that the ROWE — the independent body established by the West-Wide Governance Pathways to oversee CAISO’s EDAM and Western Energy Imbalance Market — would govern it. (See EDAM Utilities Moving to Develop RA Program.)
Jim Shetler, ROWE Formation Board member and general manager of the Balancing Authority of Northern California (BANC), said the EDAM entities — of which BANC is one — are working on the details of the RA program and aim to have draft proposal by the end of April.
“The concept here is that we would be requesting [ROWE] to administer this service on behalf of the participants,” Shetler said.
He noted the RA program would “in no way” impact the California Public Utilities Commission’s separate RA program.
ROWE has yet to seat a permanent board and is slated to do so later in 2026, at which point that body would decide whether to administer the RA program.
Because ROWE does not yet have a formal stakeholder process, the EDAM entities are proposing to continue developing the RA program through the summer, according to Shetler.
The goal is to have the revised proposal in front of the seated ROWE board later in the year, he added.
“We recognize right up front that the ROWE board will have to make the decision as to whether it, number one: wants to take on this service or not,” Shetler said. “And we also recognize that, and expect that, the ROWE board, if they decide to do so, would want to conduct additional stakeholder processes as appropriate.”
However, because of the time constraints EDAM entities are facing, “we do need to get to at least an initial decision on whether this is a viable outfit or not by this fall,” Shetler said.
Participants in the RA project are PacifiCorp, Portland General Electric, Public Service Company of New Mexico, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, NV Energy, the Turlock Irrigation District and BANC. (See Alternative Western RA Program Starts to Take Shape.)
The new resource adequacy program is seen as an alternative to Western Power Pool’s Western Resource Adequacy Program (WRAP).
Participants in the day-ahead market competing with EDAM — SPP’s Markets+ — will be required to join WRAP. EDAM members also may join WRAP, but some expected EDAM participants expressed concerns about the program and decided to withdraw. (See PacifiCorp Next to Leave WRAP After Raising Concerns.)
Shetler said the EDAM entities are looking to take advantage of existing ROWE and Pathways contracts to facilitate stakeholder processes and “try to leverage and take advantage of that expertise.”
“With respect to funding, we are not asking that the ROWE make use of any of your existing funds that have been contributed for the development of the ROWE,” Shetler said. “The EDAM sector is prepared to contribute separately for the support of the facilitator in helping us with this effort.”
Kathleen Staks, ROWE interim president, said while ROWE itself is still in its nascent stages, “it is exciting that we’re in a position where we’re already seeing an interest in developing those additional market services under an independent governance.”
Brian Turner, senior director at Advanced Energy United, said he was “excited” about the proposal.
“I recognize and understand the significant need that it’s serving within non-CAISO Western EDAM entities to have a unified resource adequacy accounting and perhaps trading sharing mechanism,” Turner said, adding the program would add “substantial resources to those non-CAISO entities.”
