The Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) achieved $462.05 million in cost-saving benefits in the third quarter of 2023, bringing total leveraged savings across California and the western U.S. to $4.66 billion since the launch of the market in 2014.
According to a release, the increase in third-quarter economic benefits is due to a growing number of market participants and expanded resource diversity across a broader geographic footprint, allowing cleaner, less expensive energy to serve demand in place of more expensive generation.
By the end of 2023, total WEIM economic benefits will likely reach $5 billion, hitting the real-time electricity market’s second billion-dollar milestone. In July, the WEIM topped $4 billion in gross cumulative benefits.
The WEIM enables participating entities to buy and sell power close to the time electricity is generated and consumed, which was critical for helping to maintain interconnection reliability during the summer of 2023. Using state-of-the art technology, the market finds and delivers lowest-cost resources to meet immediate power needs and manages congestion on transmission lines to maintain grid reliability.
The WEIM also provides system operators real-time visibility across neighboring grids, resulting in more efficient balancing of supply and demand. This is particularly important on summer evenings when electricity use remains high but solar generation is rolling off the system.
With three entities joining in 2023, the market includes 22 participants from 11 western states. Members of the WEIM that have hydro in their portfolio are: Avangrid, Avista, Idaho Power, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, NorthWestern Energy, PacifiCorp, Portland General Electric, Puget Sound Energy, Seattle City Light, Salt River Project, Tacoma Power and Turlock Irrigation District. Bonneville Power Administration, which markets hydropower from the Federal Colombia River Power System, is also a member.
Because of greater regional coordination in the WEIM, the market also reduces greenhouse gas emissions by finding excess clean power at risk of curtailment and moving it across the West. Since 2014, the WEIM has reduced GHG emissions by more than 904,219 metric tons.
The participants with the greatest economic benefit in Q3 are Powerex with $83.72 million, LADWP with $64.78 million and NV Energy with $60.3 million.
Building on the success of the WEIM, the California Independent System Operator and stakeholders are developing an Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM). This enables WEIM participants to benefit from optimized and efficient commitments in the day-ahead market to meet next-day demand, where the majority of energy transactions occur.
