CAISO-WEIM Agreement Forges Path For Extended Day-Ahead Market

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
February 5, 2023

The governing bodies of the California Independent System Operator’s and the Western Energy Imbalance Market on Thursday approved initiatives establishing an extended day-ahead market.

The EDAM final proposal will allow WEIM entities that currently buy and sell energy in the real-time market to participate in an extended day-ahead market, giving them access to additional economic, environmental and reliability benefits and better position them to respond to operational challenges stemming from a changing resource mix and extreme weather events, CAISO said.

Along with the EDAM initiative, the governing bodies also approved a proposal that, among other things, would apply the existing joint approval authority of the WEIM’s board and governing body to the EDAM market rules.

The proposal would also encourage the WEIM Regional Issues Forum to engage more directly in the stakeholder process for establishing priorities on policy initiatives,

CAISO said its next step in the EDAM process is the development of tariff language through additional stakeholder engagement over the coming months, and then spend the rest of the year and part of 2024 focusing on implementation activities.

CAISO’s board of governors also adopted the Transmission Services and Market Scheduling Priorities Phase 2 initiative that supports grid reliability by providing a long-term approach to allocating transmission capacity to California load-serving entities while enabling external entities to obtain priority scheduling, or wheel-through rights, to transfer energy across the ISO’s system.

PacifiCorp in December announced its intention to join EDAM when it launches. In May, the Bonneville Power Administration became one of the newest members of the Western Energy Imbalance Market.