[Portland, OR] – The Northwest Power Pool corporation (NWPP Corporation) is pleased to announce that, effective May 1, the membership of the Northwest Power Pool expanded to include two new Balancing Authorities—Western Area Power Administration’s Western Area Colorado-Missouri (WACM) and Xcel Energy-Colorado, doing business in the state as Public Service of Colorado (PSCo).  WACM and PSCo expect to begin operating as members of the Reserve Sharing Group on August 1.

The NWPP Corporation has been coordinating efforts between the Northwest Power Pool membership and these two organizations since 2017 to identify benefits and remove any obstacles to their integration into the Operating Committee and the Reserve Sharing Group. WACM and PSCo have been exploring other avenues to share reserves and address generation dynamics across their systems. WACM and PSCo, in coordination with their Balancing Authority members, agreed to join NWPP Corporation.

The expanded Reserve Sharing Group translates to continued reliable grid operations, upon which the West depends. The Rocky Mountain Reserve Group will be dissolved once WACM and PSCo are up and operating as Northwest Power Pool Reserve Sharing Group members.

The move will enhance the efficiency, reliability, and resilience of Northwest Power Pool Balancing Authority operations for member utilities and their customers. It also significantly expands the Northwest Power Pool footprint, bringing a diversity of resources and deployable contingency reserve, which will enhance effectiveness of contingency response, improve efficiency, and potentially reduce environmental impacts.

About the NWPP Corporation

The NWPP Corporation is a nonprofit corporation based in Portland, Oregon. Having evolved from informal operations with shared staffing resources in 1941, the NWPP Corporation strives to help its customer organizations achieve maximum benefits of coordinated operations. The staffing and administrative functions supporting the standing committees under the Northwest Power Pool Agreement were folded into the NWPP Corporation in 1999.

During the course of its evolution, the NWPP Corporation has refined its core values to be customer-driven, relationship-based, independent, and operating with great integrity. From this foundation, the NWPP Corporation provides professional and management services to its participating organizations, as defined by its General Services Agreements and professional service contracts with individual participants. The Northwest Power Pool Agreement provides for a voluntary association whose membership consists of major generating utilities serving much of the western United States, as well as British Columbia and Alberta. Other organizations involved in the electric utility industry (such as non-utility generators, power marketers, system operators, planning organizations, and distribution utilities) participate under the Northwest Power Pool Agreement according to their unique needs and priorities.

Northwest Power Pool membership activities are largely determined by major committees—the Operating Committee, the Coordinating Group for the Pacific Northwest Coordination Agreement, the Reserve Sharing Group Committee, and the Transmission Planning Committee.

For more information, please contact:
Frank Afranji, 503-445-1074 or Frank.Afranji@nwpp.org