The Southwest Power Pool went live with its Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) expansion into the Western Interconnect on April 1.
Several regional utilities, including the Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, are participants in the expanded RTO, which aims to strengthen reliability across the region while keeping wholesale electricity prices low through SPP’s power market. The expansion marks the culmination of years of planning and collaboration among SPP and participating utilities. The expansion effort was led by nine electric load-serving utilities with resources and customers in states adjoining SPP’s prior service territory to the West. Along with MEAN, utilities leading the RTO expansion effort include:
- Colorado Springs Utilities
- Platte River Power Authority
- Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association
- Basin Electric Power Cooperative
- Deseret Power Electric Cooperative
- Western Area Power Administration’s Upper Great Plains-West region, Colorado River Storage Project and Rocky Mountain region.
In total, more than 30 utilities in eight states (Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming) will join SPP’s service territory. As RTO members and market participants, they will gain access to the RTO’s portfolio of generating resources, planning services and support in coordinating electric reliability.
MEAN, which provides wholesale power supply to communities in the Eastern and Western Interconnect, has been a participant in SPP’s RTO in the Eastern Interconnect for several years, providing power supply to 29 participants. With SPP's expansion, MEAN will now provide power supply to 20 communities through SPP on the Western Interconnect.
Participation in SPP’s RTO expansion is expected to deliver the same advantages the organization has demonstrated across its central U.S. footprint, including enhanced reliability, lower wholesale electric energy costs through regional dispatch, transparent and independent grid governance and efficient planning that supports economic and industrial growth.
Operating as a coordinated system will strengthen real-time situational awareness across a wider geography and enable the region to maximize diverse generating resources, navigate weather events and other threats to grid integrity, and optimize the use and planning of the region’s transmission network. These benefits will continue to grow as new members integrate into SPP’s planning processes, markets, and reliability toolset.
MEAN planning to participate in SPP’s Markets+
Along with participation in SPP’s RTO expansion, MEAN is among utilities planning to participate in SPP’s Markets+ to serve electric load to three of its wholesale electric participants in Colorado: Aspen, Center and Glenwood Springs. Those three communities are served by the Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo) transmission system. PSCo opted to join the Markets+ rather than the RTO expansion.
Markets+ is a stakeholder driven day-ahead wholesale energy market that includes a bundle of services coordinated by SPP that strives to enhance grid reliability and lower costs with the potential for more integration of renewable energy.
The electric loads from the three communities fall outside of SPP’s RTO expansion footprint. Participating in SPP’s Markets+ to serve those specific electric load obligations provides maximum flexibility while keeping future options available. MEAN is using its existing relationship with The Energy Authority (TEA) to act as MEAN’s market participant in Markets+, which is expected to go live in 2027.