A few months ago, we shared news of significant cost savings in the last quarter of 2022 thanks to our participation in the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) Western Energy Imbalance market (WEIS). It’s a mouthful of words, but the results speak for themselves – from helping to manage energy costs to ensuring resilient and reliable electric services.
After just one year of involvement in SPP, we’ve saved customers approximately $4.7 million in energy costs. Cost savings are realized thanks to energy-related purchases through SPP that are below our cost to generate electricity locally and market sales of excess power generation.
An announcement by SPP on Sept. 14, 2023, will likely mean additional cost savings and growing access to affordable and reliable energy resources for our customers in the years to come.
SPP will soon become the first organization in the U.S. to provide full regional transmission organization (RTO) services in both Eastern and Western Interconnections of the nation’s power grid. We will officially join the RTO, along with several other energy providers and organizations, by April 2026. According to SPP, membership is expected to continue to grow in 2027 and beyond.
The RTO development is great news because it will significantly expand pooled resources that have already helped to maintain system reliability and manage energy costs for our customers.
This type of regional access to resources is incredibly important as the energy industry continues to experience growing regulatory mandates and market-related pressures.
Our involvement in SPP is just one piece – albeit an important one – to our Sustainable Energy Plan and our efforts to provide electric grid resiliency and reliability, manage cost and ensure a cleaner energy future.
