California and 12 other US states, plus parts of Canada and Mexico, are considering whether to expand the California wholesale grid and balancing area to include the entire region, in order to increase the flow of reliable, affordable, and renewable power across the West. This shift to a regional independent system operator, or ISO, would also expand resource flexibility, improve transmission planning and grid reliability, and enable a far larger share of renewable energy across the system. But it\u2019s not without risk: Would a unified Western market kill the market for power projects sold under virtual PPAs outside its borders? Would it give project developers\u2014or even coal plants\u2014operating within the Western grid but outside California a competitive edge over California\u2019s own renewable project developers? Would it become a loophole through which coal power starts being imported into California, after many years of effort trying to get rid of coal in the Golden State? Would California or any of the other Western states lose control over their own power production and consumption? And what about the five states that could join the Southwest Power Pool instead\u2014what will they do?<\/p>\n
These are complex questions with no easy answers, but our guest in this episode is an expert on the subject and ably walks us through all the pros and cons\u2026and points the way to a potentially very different future for power markets in the American West.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If 13 US states and parts of Canada and Mexico were to join the California ISO system, how would it affect power markets across the West? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[442,438,439,21,268,69,397,369,441,26,440,384,359],"class_list":["post-1600","xen_episodes","type-xen_episodes","status-publish","hentry","category-energy-transition-show-podcasts","tag-antarctica","tag-caiso","tag-cal-iso","tag-coal","tag-ferc","tag-grid","tag-grid-balancing","tag-ice","tag-regionalization","tag-renewables","tag-southwest-power-pool","tag-vc-summer","tag-wholesale-markets","xen_guests-laura-wisland"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n