Utility wildfire experts told WECC last week that another expected year of hot, dry weather will increase the danger of major fires in California, Arizona and the Pacific Northwest that could threaten the electric grid during the West’s annual fire season. "If you look at any of the indices across...

CAISO kicked off an extended 20-year transmission planning process (TPP) on Friday to support the state’s clean energy goals. The long-term planning process, still in its conceptual stages, was launched in a two-hour stakeholder call covering its broad outline and inviting an initial round of comments from interested parties by...

Western states and utilities must work more closely to prevent capacity shortfalls and head off the type of energy crisis that roiled the region 20 years ago. Those were the key takeaways from a webinar Friday that explored resource adequacy issues in the West and the benefits and challenges of...

PG&E Corp. faces a long list of financial risks that include new criminal charges and wildfire liabilities not included in last year’s bankruptcy settlement, company officials said in an earnings call and a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. California’s largest utility is counting on the...

The controversy over wheel-throughs in CAISO was not so much a rejection of the ISO’s proposal as an example of the types of comprises and efforts needed to make Western regionalization succeed, CAISO CEO Elliot Mainzer told RTO Insider Friday. "I see this as a test of our collective capacity...

In a rare move Monday, the Western Energy Imbalance Market Governing Body issued an advisory opinion that essentially rejected CAISO’s proposal to head off summer capacity shortfalls by limiting wheel-throughs during times of scarce supply and strained transmission. The plan favors the interests of CAISO and California EIM entities, leaving...

FERC on Thursday approved incentive rates for a project to upgrade an 18-mile wooden-pole transmission line to steel towers (EL21-15). The Citizens-S Line in far Southern California is owned by Citizens Energy, a nonprofit Massachusetts firm founded by former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II. It connects the Imperial Irrigation...

The West needs to build transmission lines to connect renewable resources to load if it hopes to successfully make the switch from fossil fuels to wind and solar while maintaining resource adequacy and reliability, FERC Chairman Richard Glick and NERC CEO James Robb said Friday. Glick and Robb addressed a...

FERC approved a settlement Thursday between CAISO and the operator of an aging 27.5 MW cogeneration facility over a reliability must-run agreement (RMR) — a continuation of the ISO’s efforts to keep small, aging natural gas plants online to help ensure reliability this summer and beyond (ER20-1708). The Channel Islands...

The California Public Utilities Commission used its new enhanced oversight and enforcement powers for the first time Thursday against Pacific Gas and Electric, citing the utility’s failure to adequately weigh wildfire risks in maintaining its power lines. Commissioners voted to put PG&E into the first step of a six-step enforcement...