Energy industry analysts Energy GPS turned their attention to the Western Resource Adequacy Program (WRAP) in January for Special Report, a 10-page primer on the RA program led by Western Power Pool. 

Energy GPS Principal Tim Belden said the report was moved from behind the subscription-only paywall because it is such a critical topic.

The primer begins with a summary of WRAP’s purpose. From the report:

"At a high level, the WRAP endeavors to accomplish the following:

• Determine the total program demand (MW) based on expected coincident peak load for participants within the program footprint plus a buffer known as a planning reserve margin (PRM).
• Parse the total program demand to individual participants which becomes a binding compliance obligation for each participant.
• Develop a standard resource accreditation technique to calculate the MW of accredited resource adequacy for all generation and demand resources in the program footprint.
• Develop a forward showing program whereby each participant demonstrates it has met its share of program demand with accredited capacity.
• Develop an operational program which enables an orderly sharing of available resources during times when one or more program participants are deficient.
• Develop reasonable and acceptable financial performance incentives."

The report covers WRAP’s background and history and its current state before diving deep into resource accreditation. 

Download the full report.