Southwest Power Pool to design energy program for Northwest Power Pool
by August 10, 2020 4:09 pm 617 views
Northwest Power Pool of Portland, Ore., has hired Little Rock-based regional transmission organization Southwest Power Pool Inc. (SPP) to act as the program developer in its effort to develop a resource adequacy program for its member utilities.
Southwest Power Pool will work with Northwest Power Pool and the utilities to expand and refine the preliminary program design into a comprehensive resource adequacy program.
“Southwest Power Pool has direct experience developing and running a resource adequacy program across multiple states and the skill to help us determine key program design features to achieve the reliability objectives of the RA program,” said Frank Afranji, president of Northwest Power Pool.
“The program we are developing will be available to participants with different needs and interests across a wide swath of the West, and we believe SPP’s multi-state RA program experience will help us develop a program that provides benefits for all participants as well as the region.”
The project is expected to be completed over the remainder of the year and will include the design phase of the Northwest Power Pool’s resource adequacy program development.
“We are excited to assist the Northwest Power Pool in this important effort to develop a resource adequacy program in the West,” said Barbara Sugg, president and CEO of Southwest Power Pool. “SPP has administered a regional resource adequacy program in various forms and phases over the past five decades. Our expertise in program design, development and administration as well as our experience working with stakeholders and regulators will provide value to the (Northwest Power Pool) RA program development effort.”
When the program is designed and the development phase comes to an end, Northwest Power Pool will seek a program administrator to implement and run the program.
“The program administrator is a separate role from the program developer role with different requirements, and we look forward to considering all candidates for this role in the future,” Afranji said.
The effort to develop a resource adequacy program by the Northwest Power Pool and 18 utility members has been underway since October 2019.
SPP manages the electric grid across 17 central and western U.S. states and provides energy services to customers in the Eastern and Western Interconnections.