Title
Approval of Agreement No. 20-RMR-3182 with Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) for Balancing Services Agreement
Recommended Action
I move the Board of Public Utilities approve Agreement 20-RMR-3182 with Western Area Power Administration for Balancing Services and forward to Council for approval.
Staff Recommendation
Staff recommends that the Board approve as presented.
Body
Los Alamos County must be a party in this agreement due to its Purchase Power Agreement with Lincoln Electric for Laramie River Station Generation. Prior to 2020 the Western Interconnect only had one Reliability Coordinator, when this Reliability Coordinator announced its dissolution a series of shifts took place. WAPA has undertaken a few different approaches. The first was an attempt to create a Regional Transmission organization with entities throughout the Rocky Mountain Region. This effort did not come to past. WAPA’s second option was to choose a new Reliability Coordinator from outside the Western Interconnect and introduce an Energy Imbalance Service very similar to the established Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) provided by California Independent System Operator. This new WAPA market offering is called the Western Energy Imbalance Service (WEIS). In addition to the new Reliability Coordinator and new Market, WAPA has also joined a new reserve sharing group called the Northwest Power Pool (NWPP). The NWPP contract requirements differ from the reserve sharing group that existed before.
The inception of the new Reliability coordinator, the WEIS, and the entry into the NWPP has caused WAPA to strive for consistency, and uniformity. WAPA is also trying to ensure costs are aligned with the different products and services they are providing. The Balancing Area Services Agreement is WAPA’s solution to these issues. It is an outline of expectations and the types of services that have been subscribed to by the customers. From Staff’s perspectiv...
Click here for full text