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). Another process looked at how to allocate the costs of the transmission system if PacifiCorp or another utility joins the CAISO.
You should be able to find the comments on the CAISO’s website here under stakeholder comments. Look for NIPPC’s.
The process to move towards an expanded regional energy market is complicated and is going to take a long time. Anyone who owns, operates or is considering development of generation assets in the CAISO or PacifiCorp balancing areas should be paying close attention. There is still a long time before these proposals are converted to tariff language and submitted to FERC. And still a long time before state regulators will begin to consider approving any proposal for PacifiCorp to join the CAISO. But the foundation for what those future filings is being laid now – and if you want to influence the final result, now is the time to get involved.
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about the process, the issues, or impacts to your projects.
