The Southwest Power Pool plans to offer reliability coordination services in the Western Interconnection starting in late 2019.
The June 5 announcement from the Little Rock, Ark.-based grid operator presents another option for utilities in the West that are now choosing among several entities vying to provide them with reliability coordination, or RC, services.
The California ISO plans to launch its own RC service in September 2019. Meanwhile, Peak Reliability, the independent reliability coordinator for the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, is joining forces with PJM Interconnection subsidiary PJM Connext to offer RC services and markets in the West. A transition period would take place from 2020-2021.
Reliability coordinators assess transmission reliability and coordinate emergency operations within a region and across regional boundaries. SPP is one of 10 U.S. reliability coordinators in the Eastern Interconnection and has an RC service territory that extends from the Canadian border to the Texas panhandle.
"SPP has served as an RC in the east for more than two decades and has coordinated electric reliability one way or another since we formed in 1941," SPP President and CEO Nick Brown said in a statement. "We've shown consistently throughout our history an ability to coordinate people, systems and complex processes to keep the lights on."
Carl Monroe, SPP's executive vice president and COO, said SPP has proven that its value goes beyond compliance and minimum reliability standards and that it can work with neighboring RCs to enhance reliability beyond its borders.
The grid operator said it has written to the Western Electricity Coordinating Council and North American Electric Reliability Corporation to state its intent to offer the services in the West. SPP said 28 Western utilities, representing roughly 200 terawatt-hours of net energy load, have already signed letters of intent expressing interest in its RC services.
SPP manages the electric grid and wholesale energy market across the central U.S., with a territory that spans 14 states. A group of electricity service providers in the Mountain West region are in talks with SPP to join the organization.
