SPP says it has named Carrie Simpson, a key figure in its expansion efforts in the Western Interconnection, as its vice president of markets, effective April 1.  

Currently the RTO’s senior director of seams and Western services, Simpson will replace Antoine Lucas, who was recently promoted to COO. 

Simpson will be responsible for overseeing the development, design and delivery of all SPP market-based services and will serve as the executive sponsor of the Markets+ effort, a regional day-ahead wholesale market that is in its second stage of development. 

Simpson helped develop SPP’s Integrated Marketplace — a next-day market that serves as the foundation of the RTO’s Western market offerings — before taking a position as Western markets director with Xcel Energy subsidiary Southwestern Public Service in Colorado in 2015. She rejoined the RTO in 2022. (See SPP Brings Back Ex-staffer to Develop Western Services.) 

Simpson has more than 20 years of industry experience. She holds an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a law degree from the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law. She is licensed to practice law in Colorado. 

SPP Opens Denver Office

SPP has opened an office in Denver, a logical decision given the grid operator’s many activities in the Western Interconnection. Since 2019, SPP has: 

• • served as a reliability coordinator in the West; 

• • stood up the Western Energy Imbalance Service market; 

• • operated the Western Power Pool’s Western Resource Adequacy Program; 

• • attracted seven members as part of its RTO expansion into the West, scheduled to go live in 2026; and 

• • begun development of Markets+. 

SPP would not be the first grid operator with satellite offices: Neighboring MISO has offices in Eagan, Minn., and Little Rock, Ark., in addition to its corporate headquarters in Carmel, Ind. 

The Seams Advisory Group inaugurated the office’s conference room with a meeting March 7. SPP’s Jena Arnold told stakeholders the RTO expansion effort is in a holding pattern while waiting on FERC approval of its filed tariff before it can begin collaborating with other planning regions. The RTO expects to set up joint operating agreements with at least nine other utilities in the West. 

New Winter Peak Set

C.J. Brown, SPP’s director of system operations, told the Resource and Energy Adequacy Leadership (REAL) Team on March 3 that the RTO set a new winter peak of 48.14 GW in its balancing authority area Feb. 20. 

“It was very, very tight,” Brown said. He noted that SPP relied on 3 GW of imports to make up for a loss of wind production that was down that day as compared to Feb. 19. He promised a full presentation before the Markets and Operations Policy Committee with “plenty of graphics and details.” 

The REAL Team did not take up any voting items during its short meeting before SPP’s Energy Synergy Summit.