FERC commissioners told an audience of Western stakeholders and regulators that they back the formation of a Western RTO; California can't go it alone.

The first day of EBA's Mid-Year Forum included discussions on FERC's inquiry into transmission cost allocation and organized market developments in the West.

Increased discussion of a Western RTO is being driven by clean-energy mandates and state laws requiring transmission owners to join an organized market.

CAISO paused its WEIM EDAM effort last year but renewed it Wednesday amid a growing push for greater Western regionalization and market coordination.

An Oregon committee discussed how a Western RTO would likely take shape for reasons much different from those that motivated the other organized markets.

Major Western utilities plan to discuss coordinated market services and the possible formation of an organized market in an exploratory group.

A meeting to hash out an upcoming Oregon study on RTO membership turned to how the state’s participation might fit into other developments in the West.

Oregon’s Department of Energy is seeking input from power industry stakeholders to help produce a study that could convince lawmakers to obligate the state’s utilities to participate in an RTO.

Arizona has joined Colorado, Nevada and Oregon in exploring membership in an RTO in the Western Interconnection.

FERC Chairman Richard Glick says "the time is right for the states, the region’s utilities and other key stakeholders" to form one or more Western RTOs.