In June 2019, the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) announced that it intends to launch the Western Energy Imbalance Service (WEIS) market in December 2020. SPP currently oversees the electric grid and wholesale power market for utilities and transmission companies in 14 central U.S. states, and the new market is expected to generate significant cost savings for participants.
On September 10, 2018, California’s then-Governor Jerry Brown approved and signed Senate Bill No. 100 (also known as ““The 100 Percent Clean Energy Act of 2018”). The bill mandates that utilities obtain 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by the year 2045. The bill is designed to gradually increase targets for retail sales of electricity from renewable energy sources over a time of approximately 26 years. The state targets are 33 percent by December 31, 2020; 50 percent by December 31, 2026; and 60 percent by December 31, 2030. The remaining renewable portfolio targets would then have 15 years to reach 100 percent.
The bill’s targets are amendments to the existing California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program requirements set forth in Senate Bills 1078 (in 2002) and 350 (in 2015). Equally ambitious renewable energy goals have been set in Hawaii along the same timeline.
As of November 2018, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) 2018 California Renewables Portfolio Standard Annual Report stated “most of the retail sellers procured at or above the 27% RPS annual target for 2017”. Large investor-owned utilities (IOUs) are forecast to reach 50% renewable procurement contracts by 2020. Small and multi-jurisdictional utilities (SMJUs), Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs), and Electric Service Providers (ESPs) are reporting compliance with RPS requirements and forecast that they will be able to meet the 2020 targets. Despite reporting compliance, CCAs and ESPs have significant procurement needs to meet requirements in the near term.
To facilitate the meeting of RPS goals, Power Settlements licenses trading and scheduling modules for energy market participants including the Trade Capture, Position Management, and Etagging modules, as part of the SettleCoreTM solution. These modules allow visibility over trade portfolios, offer robust analytics, and ensure automatic flow of real-time data into settlement processes. Utilities are able to track their RPS compliance by monitoring their trades and scheduling, as well as make informed decisions on portfolio changes based on industry factors.
Contact us today to discuss how the trading and scheduling modules can help your company prosper and maintain compliance.
