Southwest Power Pool plans to dissolve older grid reliability unit

The Southwest Power Pool, which plans transmission and operates wholesale electricity markets for Oklahoma and parts of 13 other states, said Tuesday it will dissolve its regional organization focusing on reliability compliance and enforcement.

As the SPP has grown over the years to include other states, it has outgrown its regional entity, the organization set up in 2007 to oversee reliability compliance in the bulk power system. The move comes as SPP looks at additional expansion to Colorado and Wyoming.

“Over the last decade, the SPP RTO (regional transmission organization) has expanded its footprint from eight to fourteen states, launched successful real-time and next-day energy markets and become a consolidated balancing authority for its 546,000-squaremile region,” said Nick Brown, SPP’s president and CEO.

Brown said the decision to dissolve the regional entity comes with the support of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., SPP’s regional entity trustees and other stakeholders. He said SPP will focus on its core functions of reliability coordination, wholesale market operations and transmission planning.

The regional entity is an electric reliability compliance authority that is independent and functions separately from SPP. It currently provides auditing and enforcement functions for 120 electric utilities in an eight-state area, including Oklahoma.

Representatives of the two largest Oklahoma electric utilities — Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. and Public Service Co. of Oklahoma — said they don’t expect the transition to a new regional entity to affect customers. The move is more administrative than functional, since the reliability compliance standards set up by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. will still be in place.

The transition to a new regional entity is expected to be finalized by the end of 2018. Until then, SPP said its regional entity will continue to function. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission must approve the termination of SPP’s regional entity delegation agreement.