The California Independent System Operator’s Extended Day-Ahead Market, which launched Friday, is running smoothly so far with prices across all commodities continuing to fall within expected ranges throughout the day, CAISO said Wednesday.
“The takeaways from each day's performance may begin to sound a bit repetitive, and we consider that a good thing,” said CAISO’s director of communications Jayme Ackemann in a video update. “EDAM continues to see steady transfer volumes among market areas, which enables broader economic diversity and allows the lowest-cost supply solution to serve demand across a wider footprint.”
Prices falling where anticipated “[reflects] that the underlying physics and economics of market design are working across the expanded market footprint,” Ackemann said.
Market data platform Noreva noted in a Monday briefing that on launch day, “day-ahead prices at PacifiCorp hubs traced a mild duck curve, but notably more subdued than CAISO hubs.”
“In hour 19, all five pricing hubs across California and PacifiCorp converged to within $0.25/MWh of each other,” Noreva said in a LinkedIn post. “One hour later, CAISO hubs pulled away to $30+/MWh while PacifiCorp dropped to $23. The co-optimization is already working, but the evening ramp exposes exactly where the transmission and generation mix constraints still bind.”
EDAM launched with a single participant, PacifiCorp, with its second participant Portland General Electric set to join the market in October.
On Monday, all EDAM areas passed 100% of the market’s resource sufficiency evaluation, and the regional energy transferred increased to 600 MW, Ackemann said.
“Consistent with typical conditions at this time of year, when we see moderate seasonal demand and strong renewable output, prices are lower during midday hours and higher as we approach the evening peak,” she said.
On Tuesday, CAISO president and CEO Elliot Mainzer told Energy-Storage.news that batteries will play “an important role” in EDAM.
“Battery energy storage is now a major player on the Western grid,” Mainzer said in a LinkedIn post. “Excited to see how [the Western Energy Imbalance Market] and EDAM will help optimize the value of these resources and lay the groundwork for the next generation of energy storage technologies to enter commercial operations.”
Ackemann also announced Wednesday that BHE Montana, a Montana energy producer and grid operator, and two subsidiaries of Black Hills Corp., a South Dakota utility, have begun participating in the Western Energy Imbalance Market.
“And that means adding thousands of new constraints to the real time market as well, and conducting parallel operations testing with two new participants, all of which is happening in tandem with the implementation of the extended day ahead market,” she said. “Our rapid response team will also support our new WEIM participants, while continuing to address any issues that arise in the EDAM market.”
The addition of these three WEIM participants “extends the market’s reach to 24 balancing authorities and 12 Western states,” CAISO said in a release. Black Hills Energy is the first South Dakota entity to join WEIM.
