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News
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LCG, May 8, 2025--The Southwest Power Pool (SPP) Board of Directors approved SPP’s proposed Expedited Resource Adequacy Study (ERAS) at its May 6 meeting. SPP developed the new ERAS in collaboration with its stakeholders in response to the growing need to add new generating resources before the region’s generating capacity is outpaced by its electricity demands. ERAS is intended to be a one-time, expedited study process designed to significantly accelerate the addition of new power generation facilities to the grid and address concerns about the near term ability to maintain the affordable and reliable electric service that consumers expect.
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LCG, May 7, 2025--EDP Renewables North America LLC (EDPR NA) announced yesterday the inauguration of its Scarlet II Solar Energy Park (Scarlet II) in Fresno County, California. This phase of the solar plus energy storage project includes 200 MW of solar capacity, plus a co-located 150 MW/600 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS). The initial phase of the project, Scarlet I, which provides 200 MW of solar and 40 MW/160 MWh of BESS, achieved commercial operations in July 2024.
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Industry News
SPP Board Approves Alternative, Accelerated Generation Interconnection Process to Improve Regional Resource Adequacy
LCG, May 8, 2025--The Southwest Power Pool (SPP) Board of Directors approved SPP’s proposed Expedited Resource Adequacy Study (ERAS) at its May 6 meeting. SPP developed the new ERAS in collaboration with its stakeholders in response to the growing need to add new generating resources before the region’s generating capacity is outpaced by its electricity demands. ERAS is intended to be a one-time, expedited study process designed to significantly accelerate the addition of new power generation facilities to the grid and address concerns about the near term ability to maintain the affordable and reliable electric service that consumers expect.
SPP will next file enabling amendments to its governing documents for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) consideration later in May. Upon approval by FERC, SPP staff will notify load responsible entities (LREs) of the process to submit projects for inclusion in the ERAS process as early as August, with rights to interconnect being granted as early as April 2026.
The new ERAS process creates a separate path to SPP’s traditional generator interconnection (GI) study queue that will allow entities who are responsible for meeting consumers’ electricity demand to accelerate the operation dates for new generating resources. The ERAS process is available only to generation projects that are nominated by LREs and that meet clearly defined thresholds related to near-term resource adequacy needs. Key elements of the ERAS process include:
1. Eligibility is limited to new generation nominated by LREs, of a maximum capacity set by a formula using each LRE’s accredited capacity and the gap between its capacity and seasonal reserve requirements, up to a calculated ceiling.
2. Projects must be capable of reaching commercial operation within five years of executing a generation interconnection agreement.
3. Projects that were submitted for consideration in SPP’s most recent batch of GI study requests will be given the option to transfer their submissions to the ERAS queue.
SPP's President and CEO stated, “ERAS offers utilities who are responsible for keeping the lights on a clearly defined and impactful opportunity to address real and immediate needs. It’s not a replacement for broader interconnection reforms, but this complementary effort will ensure reliability isn’t compromised during a transitional period while we work to implement more permanent solutions.”
SPP's 2024 report entitled, "Our Generational Challenge: A Reliable Future for Electricity," summarized SPP's supply and demand challenges as follows:
"Wind generation, the fastest growing resource type in our region, provides low-cost, carbon-free energy, yet its variability requires generators of other energy sources to increase production, sometimes rapidly, when wind stops blowing. Coal and gas generators are typically dependable sources of energy during non-extreme weather conditions. However, plants are being decommissioned due to aging equipment, increasing environmental restrictions, and higher operational costs. These plants also need to improve their performance during stressful weather conditions."
"SPP’s peak demands could be as much as 25% higher by 2030 for winter and summer....We are entering a new era of electrification with electric vehicles, data centers, artificial intelligence, and other new sources of demand. Extreme weather events are stressing our grid more than ever as consumers continue to set records for electricity use."
The new ERAS process will ideally mitigate reliability risks expected from the rapidly increasing load forecasts, a backlog of projects in the existing GI queue and the accelerating pace of generator retirements. ERAS is intended to be a bridge between immediate needs and longer-term relief expected from SPP’s Consolidated Planning Process (CPP), a separate initiative to streamline complex and time-intensive planning processes that have slowed interconnection requests over the last decade.
SPP stated that the ERAS proposal received broad support from SPP’s stakeholders, although some raised concerns that offering certain projects an expedited path to interconnection may conflict with SPP’s requirement to treat all customers in a non-discriminatory manner. SPP further stated that it remains committed to principles of independence, fairness and equity, and its standard processes will continue to ensure interconnection requests are studied fairly, efficiently and with the reliability and affordability of the regional grid as paramount considerations.
“SPP is committed to evolving its processes to better serve our members and the millions who rely on them for reliable power,” said SPP's President and CEO. “ERAS is one part of that evolution — an innovative solution that will mitigate acute reliability risks without disrupting SPP’s other processes or ongoing GI queue reforms — and it comes just in time to meet the reliability needs of a quickly changing grid.”
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