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“This may represent a market that is too good to pass up for a lot of other Western utilities,” Advanced Energy United’s Brian Turner said.
Dive Brief:
- NV Energy plans to join the Extended Day-Ahead Market being developed by the California Independent System Operator, David Rubin, the Las Vegas-based utility company’s federal energy policy director, said Friday.Â
- NV Energy – with about 10,645 MW of owned and contracted capacity – intends this fall to file an application with the Nevada Public Utilities Commission seeking permission to join the EDAM, Rubin said during a meeting held by the West-Wide Governance Pathways Initiative. The initiative is developing an independent governance framework for regional power markets developed by CAISO.
- Western Resource Advocates commended NV Energy for joining the EDAM because it leverages the benefits of the existing Western Energy Imbalance Market and puts the utility company on track to comply with Nevada Senate Bill 448, which sets a goal for NV Energy to join a regional transmission organization by 2030, Vijay Satyal, WRA deputy director for markets and transmission, said in an interview.
Dive Insight:
NV Energy had been exploring joining the EDAM or the Southwest Power Pool’s Markets+ day-ahead market. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has largely approved the EDAM market, which is set to launch in the spring of 2026. FERC is reviewing Markets+, which SPP aims to start running in early 2027.
A Brattle Group study found that under several scenarios, NV Energy stood to gain $62 million to $149 million a year by joining EDAM compared with a $17 million loss to a $16 million gain by participating in Markets+.
The benefits of joining EDAM are largely due to opportunities for selling additional generation at higher prices and buying excess solar at lower prices, according to the report. The benefits are heavily influenced by NV Energy’s central location within the Western grid and by its large amount of transfer capacity, the consulting firm said.
NV Energy owned 6,010 MW, almost all gas-fired generation, and was building 444 MW of gas and 150 MW of solar, as of Dec. 31, according to its annual report filed in late February with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It also has power purchase agreements totaling 4,035 MW. The PPAs are almost all for renewable energy.
NV Energy accounts for 4.5% of all the load in the West, according to Brian Turner, a director with Advanced Energy United, a trade group for clean energy companies. Combined with utilities that have said they plan to join or are leaning towards EDAM, the market would account for about 46% of Western load, he said in an interview.
“It’s just a very large market and encompasses a large degree of resource diversity, of load diversity, of geographic diversity, with all the implications for managing different generation needs on a normal day-to-day basis in the winter versus the summer, and under extreme weather events,” Turner said. “This may represent a market that is too good to pass up for a lot of other Western utilities.”
Also, Nevada represents a transmission crossroads for the interior West, according to Turner. “This really puts Nevada at the center of Western energy development,” he said.
NV Energy joins Portland General Electric, Idaho Power, PacifiCorp, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Balancing Area of Northern California, which includes the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, in deciding to join or leaning towards joining the EDAM.
Those utilities have enough load to trigger a process that would make the Western EIM board the primary governance authority over the day-ahead and imbalance markets instead of having joint authority with CAISO’s board under a plan approved unanimously by the Pathways Initiative’s Launch Committee on Friday.
Utilities such as Arizona Public Service, El Paso Electric, Public Service Co. of New Mexico and Tucson Electric Power are also weighing their market options.
EDAM and Markets+ are similar markets, but a critical factor will be which utilities join which market, according to Gabriel Aguilera, a commissioner on the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission.
“One of the things that will matter a lot is who is participating, who you can transact with, which resources will be available to the market and how much transmission will be available,” Aguilera said during a May 17 PRC workshop on EDAM and Markets+. “That’s something I’ll continue to look at.”
