Southwest Power Pool (SPP), a 14-state Regional Transmission Organization and Regional Electricity Market) concluded reliability (both generation and transmission) needed to improve, following Polar Storm Uri, in February of 2021.
For Western Farmers Electric Cooperative (WFEC), as one of SPP’s 120 plus members this meant a need for more generation of all types (coal, natural gas, wind, nuclear and solar), plus increased transmission capability, for this region.
To accomplish this goal, SPP and its members did two things: 1) increased the winter season reserve margin from 16 percent to 36 percent and strengthened the way generation capacity is calculated. 2) SPP started authorizing construction of more transmission or improvements to existing transmission to make sure new generation could reach loads.
How did these two decisions impact WFEC? Based on the load of WFEC’s distribution members, reserves were required to increase from 352 megawatts (MW) to 792 MW, an increase of 440 MW of generation to make the region more reliable during extreme weather conditions. WFEC members’ load is also growing, and additional generation (160 MW) is necessary to serve normal load growth over the next five to six years.
At the same time, WFEC was issued Notices to Construct (NTC’s), for various transmission projects with a total cost of over $250 million dollars. These additional expenses and investments in reliability and capacity may increase rates but are necessary to maintain reliability and deliverability to consumers.
WFEC is a not-for-profit, wholesale power supplier for 21 distribution cooperatives, including REC and Altus Air Force Base, located across Oklahoma and into parts of New Mexico.
“As your electric provider, we are doing everything possible to minimize the impacts of those future challenges that will help ensure WFEC and its cooperatives can continue to provide reliable service at a competitive price,” commented WFEC, CEO, Gary Roulet.
For additional information, please visit the WFEC website at www.wfec.com.