Last week I attended a workshop at which where BPA layed out its long term vision for its Transmission Business. To BPA’s credit, they have identified many of the reasons they won’t be able to continue business as usual (though they still need to implement a transmission planning mechanism that is effective in identifying, planning and constructing projects to meet regional transmission needs). … [Read more...] about BPA, the Pacific NW and the “M” Word
Markets
BPA and Real Power Loss Returns
Bonneville’s transmission customers can compensate BPA for transmission losses through financial settlement or by returning power to BPA. In the Spring of 2017, BPA unilaterally decided it could force its customers to keep the energy they planned to deliver to BPA through “mandatory waivers” of those real power loss returns during oversupply conditions. While BPA was able to save customers … [Read more...] about BPA and Real Power Loss Returns
Expansion of CAISO to form Regional Energy Market
For much of 2016, I worked with NIPPC on the initiative to explore expanding the footprint of the California ISO to include the PacifiCorp balancing areas. There have been several parallel work streams, but we focused on two of them. The first process looked at possible changes to California's existing regional resource adequacy rules (which make sure there is enough generation available). … [Read more...] about Expansion of CAISO to form Regional Energy Market
