By Hudson Sangree
The Bonneville Power Administration took another significant step toward membership in CAISO’s Western Energy Imbalance Market on Thursday, when it formally kicked off a monthlong public comment process that it hopes will lead to signing an implementation agreement in September.
The federal power marketing agency sent a letter to stakeholders informing them of the move after conducting outreach and meetings since last July and working through a number of stakeholder concerns.
Moving into the homestretch of signing the EIM agreement is “a pretty big milestone, I think,” Steve Kerns, BPA’s director of grid modernization, told RTO Insider. “It pretty much memorializes everything we’ve talked about at our stakeholder meetings for the last year.” (See BPA Stays on Track to Join the Western EIM.)
BPA projects additional annual power revenues of $29 million to $34 million from EIM membership, according to the letter signed by CEO Elliot Mainzer.
“There are also significant benefits for transmission reliability and operations due to the improvement in situational awareness, visibility and congestion management associated with participation in the EIM,” Mainzer wrote. “This is consistent with the goal of using the transmission system more efficiently.”
BPA owns and operates three-quarters of the high-voltage transmission lines in the Pacific Northwest, and its footprint occupies an area larger than the size of France, encompassing the drainage areas for the Columbia and Snake rivers.
Its assets include 31 hydroelectric projects, such as the 7,079-MW Grand Coulee Dam and the 2,614-MW Chief Joseph Dam. It supplies electricity to 143 electric utilities that serve millions of customers in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, California, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming.
BPA would be the largest transmission owner and hydroelectric provider in the EIM, Kerns said.
The EIM is a real-time wholesale energy trading market whose voluntary participants in eight Western states have reaped more than $650 million in benefits since it started in 2014, according to CAISO. (See Cold Forces NW to Dip More Deeply into EIM as Avista Joins.)
In addition to CAISO, the EIM’s current members are Arizona Public Service, Idaho Power, NV Energy, PacifiCorp, Portland General Electric, Powerex, Puget Sound Energy and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.
Other entities scheduled to begin participation include Seattle City Light and Arizona’s Salt River Project, both in 2020; the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, NorthWestern Energy and Public Service Company of New Mexico, all in 2021; and Avista and Tucson Electric Power, in 2022.
The BPA said it hopes to make a final decision in 2021 and to go live in 2022.
The public comment period runs through July 22.
“Bonneville will use the input from comments to develop a record of decision planned for release in September,” Mainzer told stakeholders in his letter. “If the decision is to sign the implementation agreement, the next steps will include implementation activities and further stakeholder processes for the additional policy development, leading to needed changes to the Tariff and rates…
“All this activity will build up to Bonneville making a final decision on whether to join the EIM in late 2021,” he said.