Two electric utility subsidiaries of Black Hills Corporation, a utility based in Rapid City, South Dakota that serves 1.37 million electricity and natural gas and electricity customers in eight Western states, are now participating in the California ISO's Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM), CAISO reported on May 6.
Black Hills Power Inc. and Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power Company, which both do business as Black Hills Energy, entered the WEIM market on May 6. With these latest additions, the real-time electricity market now includes 23 balancing authorities outside of the ISO and spans 12 Western states.
The WEIM is a real-time electricity market that enables participating entities to buy and sell power close to the time electricity is generated and consumed. Using state-of-the-art technology, the market finds and delivers the lowest-cost resources to meet immediate power needs and manages congestion on transmission lines to maintain grid reliability.
Since the market’s launch in 2014, it has generated more than $8.6 billion in cumulative financial savings for participating entities and their customers, CAISO said.
In addition to bringing more diverse resources into the WEIM, adding Black Hills Energy enhances the geographic diversity of the market footprint by extending it into South Dakota as the market’s 12th Western state, the grid operator said. "This diversity strengthens the grid’s overall reliability because a geographically broad and electrically-connected market makes it easier to share resources between participants."
