By Herman K. Trabish | August 24, 2015
Led by a partnership between California’s grid operator and Warren Buffett-owned utilities, a few Western balancing authorities are daring to break out of their usual lonesome cowboy role and ride with a posse of electricity providers. They are making millions for themselves and their customers by doing so.
For decades, individual balancing authority areas (BAAs) in the Western U.S. operated independently to keep load and generation balanced. In the East, regional transmission operators and independent system operators developed interlocking systems with shared resources that make reliability a much easier lift.