Northwest pool slows imbalance market progress

OREANDA-NEWS. April 23, 2015. Members of the Northwest Power Pool's market assessment and coordination committee will delay a planned filing with federal regulators detailing a proposed imbalance market to serve utilities in the Pacific northwest and western Canada.

The group has put off until summer its planned mid-April petition for a declaratory order from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on development of an imbalance market using a security constrained economic dispatch (SCED) model under an independent operator.

Officials said more time was needed to complete work to identify a market operator and other "market scoping work."

Delaying the filing is likely to push utilities' decisions to commit to a northwest imbalance market into 2016.

The committee, formed in 2012, includes the Bonneville Power Administration, British Columbia's BC Hydro, Seattle City Light, Portland General Electric and other balancing area and scheduling coordinators with almost 26GW of installed capacity. It no longer includes pool members Grant County Public Utility District, Clark County Public Utility District and PacifiCorp. The latter joined a California-led energy imbalance market launched last November.

The group suffered two setbacks last month when the committee rejected bids from potential independent operators it sought to oversee the market, citing high costs and other problems with both bids. And Washington state utility Puget Sound Energy said it would follow PacifiCorp into California's imbalance market next year rather than wait for the struggling northwest market to develop.

Last week's announcement by PacifiCorp that it plans to explore full membership in the California Independent System Operator grid may have grabbed the attention of the remaining committee members.

Despite this, consultant Jan Mitchell said the "initiative is still fully on track with its phased approach to delivering locally developed solutions for the region."

Bonneville administrator Elliot Mainzer said last month the committee should look for incremental steps ahead of moving to the SCED market. Bonneville-operated transmission lines are crucial for imbalance market entities.

One option to be further explored this year is a 15-minute central clearing economic dispatch model, which officials said would build off Bonneville's 15-minute power scheduling cycle and its 15-minute wind balancing offering.

That model "may by itself deliver 75pc-80pc of the benefits of a full SCED market," the northwest pool committee said in a presentation this month.