PacifiCorp to build on success of real-time energy market innovation as first to sign on to new Western day-ahead market

December 2022

PacifiCorp, which operates in six states, shows again its commitment to providing affordable and reliable electricity by joining two revolutionary actions: the Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM) being developed by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) and the Western Power Pool’s Western Resource Adequacy Program (WRAP).

ADEX, as a provider of flexibility solutions to PacifiCorp, is really proud of this initiative.

The EDAM design offers a regional day-ahead market by leveraging the existing features of the ISO’s day-ahead market with additional modifications that recognize the unique challenges and needs of Western utilities, generators, and balancing authorities.

The EDAM final proposal will allow those Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) entities that currently buy and sell energy in the real-time market to participate in an extended day-ahead market, giving them access to additional economic, environmental, and reliability benefits and better position them to respond to operational challenges stemming from a changing resource mix and extreme weather events, CAISO said.

The proposed day-ahead market enhancements are an attempt to ensure that there are adequate flexible reserves between the day-ahead and real-time markets, so that if electricity demand shifts, or there are changes to generation from intermittent resources like renewables, real-time energy needs can still be met, according to Seth Hilton, a partner at Stoel Rives.

“A modernized western energy market is a key component of PacifiCorp’s strategy to connect and optimize the West’s abundant and diverse energy resources to deliver the lowest cost and most reliable pathway to a net-zero energy future,” said Stefan Bird, president and CEO of Pacific Power, the PacifiCorp division that serves customers in Oregon, Washington, and California.

WEIM footprint

The WEIM has already helped to save over $500 million for PacifiCorp customers and more than 3$ billion in West-wide customer benefits since its beginning in 2014.

The existing real-time WEIM optimizes energy imbalances throughout the West by transferring energy between parties in 15-minute and 5-minute intervals throughout the day. Meanwhile, the proposed EDAM boosts optimization thanks to the magnitude of resource commitments that must be made a day in advance, which are then re-optimized in the real-time WEIM as conditions change.

Although the WEIM presents some constraints as only a real-time-based market, it evidently shows that robust cooperation across utilities is key to meeting customers’ rising needs for a reliable and clean grid. EDAM will expand the ISO’s day-ahead market to WEIM entities thus facilitating optimized commitment of resources and benefit of transmission capacity across a larger footprint to efficiently position resources to reliably meet next-day demand.

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