The Southwest Power Pool (SPP) announced in September that it will soon become the first organization in the U.S. to provide full Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) services in both the Eastern and Western Interconnections of the nations power grid.
The announcement comes in the wake of Basin Electric Power Cooperative and three regions of the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) deciding to pursue full membership in SPP.
SPP now has commitments from seven western utilities to become full members in the RTO, including the Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska (MEAN). Along with Basin, WAPA and MEAN, the other utilities include: Colorado Springs Utilities, Deseret Generation and Transmission Cooperative, Platte River Power Authority and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association. The three regions of WAPA pursuing membership are the Colorado River Storage Project, Rocky Mountain Region and Upper Great Plains-West. The utilities are preparing to join the RTO in early 2026.
The expansion of SPP’s service territory is expected to create economic and reliability benefits for its member companies through access to a larger generation fleet, greater geographic diversity, and increased trading opportunities in SPP’s energy markets.
Since October 2020, SPP has been working with parties interested in evaluating the benefits and requirements of RTO membership. This group of western utilities also identified opportunities to leverage a number of benefits from SPP services to achieve renewable energy goals, protect reliability, enable more holistic transmission planning, and participate in a day-ahead wholesale electricity market.
The commitments of these utilities solidifies SPP’s long-term strategy for RTO and market expansion to bring increased value to existing and new members, according to SPP. Additionally, this growth will allow SPP and its members to enhance sustainability and reliability in the west, and involves optimizing energy markets across three DC ties, creating new opportunities for energy transfers and increased resilience for both current and future members.
This is the first major expansion of SPP’s RTO service territory in eight years.
