CAISO scored a geographically small but symbolically significant victory with the announcement that two Black Hills Energy subsidiaries will move to the ISO’s Western Energy Imbalance Market.

FERC accepted SPP’s revisions to its WEIS market tariff related to the residual supply index and ensuring that affiliated market participants’ resources are evaluated together.

SPP's western stakeholders have endorsed large chunks of tariff language that define how the day-ahead Markets+ will handle market transmission use, congestion management, transmission capacity obligations, market manipulation, and confidentiality.

Many at the joint conference focused on the eventual result of the contest between CAISO's Extended Day-Ahead Market and SPP's Markets+ to organize the West's electricity market.

The competition for organized markets in the West grew Friday as the Bonneville Power Administration launched a process to choose between day-ahead markets proposed by CAISO and SPP and regulators from five Western states urged the establishment of a new, independent RTO covering the entire West.

The proposed governance structure for SPP's Markets+ service offering and resource adequacy are two key differences with CAISO's RTO proposal.

SPP has posted its Markets+ draft service offering that lays out the RTO’s proposal to “modernize and enhance” the western grid’s operation.

The Western Markets Exploratory Group made a rare public presentation at CREPC-WIRAB of its behind-the-scenes work evaluating market options for the West.

Commissioners Mark Christie and James Danly addressed the pros and cons of the West’s pursuit of greater market coordination at the fall CREPC-WIRAB meeting.

Western utilities interested in SPP’s RTO West offering released a study showing the grid operator’s expansion could produce huge annual savings.