Dive Brief:
- The Southwest Power Pool and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation mutually agreed to terminate a delegation agreement between the two organizations, eliminating the SPP Regional Entity (SPP RE).
- The SPP RE is a NERC-designated electric reliability compliance enforcement authority created in 2007. It is an independent and functionally separate division of SPP.
- SPP President and CEO Nick Brown said the decision was made because of significant growth in the last decade, meaning the RTO's footprint and the regional entity's no longer overlap.
Dive Insight:
Eliminating the SPP RE will allow the regional transmission organization to focus on core functions of reliability coordination, wholesale market operations and transmission planning. Currently, the regional entity provides auditing and enforcement functions for 120 electric utilities acknowledged by NERC as registered entities.
SPP President and CEO Nick Brown said that over the last decade, the RTO has expanded its footprint from eight to 14 states, launched real-time and next-day energy markets, and became a consolidated balancing authority.
"Given that the footprints of the SPP RTO and SPP RE no longer align ... SPP’s executives, board of directors and members committee have made the strategic decision to focus on our core functions," said Brown.
SPP said it is committed to retaining all of the regional entity's staff, about two dozen of the power pool's 605 employees. The grid operator said the regional entity will continue to function "until a successful transition is completed, which will occur no later than December 31, 2018."
SPP was designated as a regional entity a decade ago, with responsibilities to improve bulk power system reliability by monitoring and enforcing registered entities’ compliance with reliability standards. The SPP RE footprint included an eight-state area including all or part of Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
