Updated March 25, 2021
Roseville, three others enter California ISO’s Energy Imbalance Market
Today, the Balancing Authority of Northern California (BANC) and Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) announced that WAPA’s Sierra Nevada region (SN), along with BANC members from the City of Roseville, the City of Redding and Modesto Irrigation District, began participating in the California Independent System Operator’s Western Energy Imbalance Market (EIM).
This transition occurred a week earlier than the originally scheduled cut-over date of April 1 announced in September 2019.
The Western EIM is the west’s first real-time energy market. It enables participating utilities to find the lowest cost energy to balance real-time supply and demand by scheduling power deliveries every 15 minutes with five-minute power plant dispatching. Utilities across a larger geographic area can exchange resources more effectively while significantly lowering the cost of delivering power to consumers.
“The EIM allows us to more easily integrate renewable energy resources, helping Roseville Electric meet renewable goals and manage cost for our customers,” said Michelle Bertolino, director of Roseville Electric Utility.
BANC is a joint powers authority whose members, in addition to the utilities aforementioned, include SMUD, the City of Shasta Lake and Trinity Public Utilities District. SMUD became the first BANC member to join the WEIM in April 2019.