A message from WAPA: Adapting to meet growing grid demands

By Lloyd Linke, Senior Vice President and Upper Great Plains Regional Manager of Western Area Power Administration 

Editor’s note: WAPA is one of KEM Electric Cooperative’s power suppliers. We asked Linke to update our members on what is happening at WAPA.

Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) strives to keep pace with changes in the electricity industry. This ensures that we, along with our customers, can fulfill our mission to safely provide reliable, cost-based hydropower and transmission to our customers and the communities we serve.

Core to meeting the industry’s changing demands is our commitment to exploring centralized market solutions on a region-by-region basis. This supports our ability to continue to reliably deliver hydropower to our region’s diverse, 340+ customer base.

Earlier this year, WAPA marked the four-year milestone in energy imbalance markets throughout much of our footprint. Across all our regions, WAPA is now fully participating in energy imbalance markets. In the Upper Great Plains region (UGP), which I oversee, we have been full participants in Southwest Power Pool’s Western Energy Imbalance Service market since it launched in February 2021.

On Sept. 8, 2023, WAPA’s Administrator and CEO Tracey A. LeBeau authorized UGP to pursue final negotiations with the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) to expand our participation in its Regional Transmission Organization (RTO).

In the works since 2020, three of WAPA’s regions have been working toward full participation in SPP’s RTO. Other participants in the initiative include Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Colorado Springs Utilities, Deseret Generation and Transmission Cooperative, Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, Platte River Power Authority and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association – all of which are WAPA customers. 

UGP in the Eastern Interconnection is already a member of SPP, having joined the RTO in 2015 when we placed our east-side facilities under SPP's tariff. UGP’s facilities in the Western Interconnection are expanding participation in the SPP RTO.

Upon go-live, SPP will assume the balancing authority responsibilities for our Western Area Upper Great Plains-West balancing authority area, which UGP operates in the Western Interconnection today, in a single SPP-West BAA and will implement its Integrated Marketplace across UGP’s facilities in the existing WAUW BAA footprint. 

Full SPP RTO go-live in the Western Interconnection is scheduled for April 1, 2026.

Participating in this initiative to expand the SPP RTO into the West is consistent with WAPA’s commitment to retain and increase the value of WAPA’s resources in a dynamic energy industry. 

UGP’s transmission assets are included in SPP’s annual planning process as appropriate. SPP’s 2024 Integrated Transmission Planning assessment identified a portfolio of transmission projects comprised of reliability, winter weather, economic and operational projects that will mitigate many system issues.

To address rapid load growth in North Dakota, SPP staff recommended a network of new and upgraded lines across the state. One of the major projects in the WAPA footprint is a new 439-mile, 345-kilovolt line from Belfield, North Dakota, to Maurine, South Dakota, to New Underwood, South Dakota, to Laramie River, in Wyoming, that brings large economic benefits to North Dakota and the SPP region. This project aims to address the lack of extra-high-voltage lines in this area and benefit rural communities in western Nebraska and the Dakotas. Another major project for North Dakota is a new 230-kV line from Dawson County, Montana, to Williston, North Dakota, that would provide reliability and economic benefits.

Other projects identified by WAPA-UGP in the North Dakota area include a Fargo bus upgrade, Charlie Creek to Garrison transmission line rebuild, and Jamestown reactor replacement. These projects will increase capacity, alleviate congestion, increase storm resilience and provide for continued stability in their local areas. These updates seek to increase transmission reliability in North Dakota, ensure worker safety, and aid in controlling voltage and providing stability to the region.

We have also been working diligently to modernize the IT and operational technology systems that keep the grid humming and minimize outages. On June 4, our UGP Operations team, in partnership with UGP Maintenance and IT, successfully cut over to AspenTech Monarch, WAPA’s common SCADA vendor. With this milestone, half of WAPA is now operating on a unified energy management system. This effort will improve operational flexibility, enhance cybersecurity and simplify support across regions – a significant achievement that reflects strong collaboration, dedication and perseverance.

Looking ahead, WAPA will continue to work closely with customers, generating agencies and partners to identify the best path forward that protects the value of hydropower and transmission services, as well as power system assets, for the benefit of preference customers and the nation.