SPP has hired former Idaho commissioner Kristine Raper as its senior director of state regulatory policy for the West.

Black Hills Colorado Electric has filed an application with Colorado regulators to join SPP's Markets+, saying it has no choice because it is embedded in a balancing authority that will be a Markets+ participant.

SPP says it is pursuing inter-market optimization of energy transfers between its two Western Interconnection markets, mirroring a process it has developed in its current RTO footprint.

SPP has opened an office in Denver, giving it a physical presence in the Western Interconnection as it seeks to open two different markets in the West.

With 16 binding participants and 58 GW worth of load committed, the Western Power Pool’s Western Resource Adequacy Program aims to build on the momentum in 2026 and prepare for more members.

SPP Markets+ stakeholders unanimously approved the first version of the day-ahead market's protocols, providing a framework for market design, operations and settlements as its future participants build the systems and processes.

Future participants in CAISO’s EDAM have already held extensive talks about developing an alternative to the Western Power Pool’s WRAP for non-CAISO EDAM members, NV Energy confirmed in a filing with Nevada utility regulators.

CAISO and SPP have made “significant progress” on adapting existing tools to tackle seams between the two entities’ respective day-ahead markets, according to a CAISO representative.

As the Bonneville Power Administration prepares to join Markets+, the agency hopes to complete the initial program governance setup and define its commercial model for market participation in early 2026.

A new FERC report adds to the growing body of work showing the complexity of confronting the seams issues likely to arise between the West’s two day-ahead markets when compared with challenges at the borders between RTOs and ISOs in the Eastern U.S.