WestConnect Activities Charles Reinhold WestConnect Project Manager 2008 ACC BTA Workshop Phoenix, AZ May 22, 2008

ACC BTA Workshop May 22, 2008 WestConnect Organization A Group of Transmission Owners in the Western Grid Organized under a Memorandum of Understanding Purposes: –Continue investigation of feasibility of cost-effective wholesale market enhancements –Work cooperatively with other Western Grid Organizations and market participants –Address seams issues in appropriate forums 2

WestConnect Arizona Public Service El Paso Electric Imperial Irrigation District Nevada Power Company Public Service Colorado Public Service New Mexico Sacramento Municipal Utility District Salt River Project Sierra Pacific Power Company TOTALS Jan ,000 MW of Load 34,000 Miles of Transmission Line 7.0 Million Retail Customers Served Southwest Transmission Cooperative Transmission Agency of Northern California Tri-State G & T Association Tucson Electric Power Western Area Power Administration - Rocky Mountain Region - Desert Southwest Region -Sierra Nevada Region -CRSP Management Office ACC BTA Workshop May 22,

WestConnect Transmission Footprint

ACC BTA Workshop May 22, 2008 Market Enhancement Initiatives Active Work Groups Regional Pricing Experiment Virtual Control Area Transmission Products (Conditional Firm) TTC/ATC Process Flow Based Market Initiatives Regional Transmission Planning 5

ACC BTA Workshop May 22, 2008 Regional Pricing Experiment Developed a proposed two-year experiment to eliminate rate pancaking for hourly non-firm transactions Preparing FERC filing package for submittal June 1 or shortly after Experiment to begin in early

ACC BTA Workshop May 22, 2008 Virtual Control Area Activities Joining NTTG Ace Diversity Interchange (ADI) Program – Q Western Wind & Solar Integration Study conducted by NREL to determine additional regulation enhancements Contingency reserve sharing analysis 7

Virtual Control Area Activities ADI ADI is the pooling of individual Area Control Errors (ACE) to take advantage of control area diversity By pooling ACE, participants will likely be able to: –Reduce control burden on individual control areas; –Reduce unnecessary generator control movement; –Reduce sensitivity to resources with potentially volatile output, such as wind projects, and, –Realize improvements in Control Performa.nce Standards 8

ACC BTA Workshop May 22, 2008 Virtual Control Area Activities ADI Hosted on British Columbia Transmission Corp EMS System Some WestConnect BAs have executed contract documents to join the program: APSNPCPNM PSCOSPPCSRP 9

ACC BTA Workshop May 22, 2008 Virtual Control Area Activities ADI Projected Operation Date: July 1, 2008 Additional WestConnect BAs considering participation See: _FtCollins_ pdf _FtCollins_ pdf for more detail on ADI operations 10

Virtual Control Area Activities Contingency Reserves Two existing reserve sharing groups in WestConnect footprint –Southern Reserve Sharing Group –Rocky Mountain Reserve Sharing Group Sharing between the groups historically limited by transfer capability Analysis of current potential under consideration 11

ACC BTA Workshop May 22, 2008 Transmission Products Developed regional business practices for conditional firm transmission service Early stages of assessment of potential for standardization of planning redispatch practices 12

ACC BTA Workshop May 22, 2008 TTC/ATC Process Annual workshop held May 21, 2008 Continuing efforts to make information available and responsive to stakeholders’ needs 13

14 WestConnect Subregional Planning Groups Colorado Coordinated Planning Group Southwest Area Transmission CCPG SWAT SIERRA New Area ? CCPG and SWAT act as WestConnect technical planning work groups for WestConnect planning area Coordinate Base Cases for use by all study participants Define subregional study plans, provide study resources, and perform studies Provide forum for coordination and peer review of planning studies and 10-year plans ACC BTA Workshop May 22, 2008

Annual Adequacy Study Purpose – test the adequacy of most recently published WestConnect Transmission Plan (excluding conceptual projects) A WestConnect-wide study utilizing the 5 th and 10 th year coordinated base cases Perform traditional N-0, N-1 and N-2 contingency outages Establish reliability risk of potential corridor outages with planned transmission projects in 10 th year Complete studies by August joint CCPG/SWAT meeting Deficiencies in plan noted with sufficient lead time for subregional planning participants to investigate solutions for inclusion in the 2008 WestConnect Transmission Plan

17 Biennial Long Range Study Purpose – Biennially explore conceptual long range transmission needs within WestConnect Planning Area. A Westconnect –wide study of contemporary issues facing the industry in the 10 th year and beyond. Utilizes the 10 th year coordinated base case with load forecasts and generation scenarios representative of the study time period. Study limited to power flow and only considers N-1 outages. Initial study has two fold objective: –Provide traditional transmission reliability oriented studies in response to the TEPPC economic transmission study results, –Study WestConnect-wide integration of renewable energy projects Complete initial study in 2009

18 Planned Projects by State State No. Projects Total Miles Estimated Cost (2008 $M) Arizona661,4032,331 California107591,593 Colorado161,8922,016 Nevada New Mex Texas55024 Multi-State000 TOTAL1064,636$ 6,969

19 Conceptual Projects by State State No. Projects Total Miles Estimated Cost (2008 $M) Arizona California11827 Colorado000 Nevada13170 New Mex Texas000 Multi-State33,8505,800 TOTAL224,256$ 6,204

ACC BTA Workshop May 22, 2008 Contacts and Information WestConnect ( Charles Reinhold – Project Manager