Markets & Transmission
Advancing efficient, regionally coordinated electricity markets and the transmission infrastructure needed to support them.
Our Markets & Transmission Priorities
RNW remains committed to the principle that a single, West-wide, fully integrated electricity market is the optimal way to deliver cost-effective and reliable clean energy to customers. As day-ahead markets and resource adequacy frameworks develop in the West, RNW works with regional partners to influence key aspects of market design: transparent and inclusive governance, nondiscriminatory treatment of clean energy resources, effective use of the region’s transmission system, and proactive seams management.
RNW remains committed to improving processes for planning, permitting, and paying for regional and interregional transmission, while also encouraging more efficient use of existing infrastructure to maintain reliability and support decarbonization.
Leadership
Play a leadership role in regional market development conversations and decision making, ensuring regional day-ahead electricity markets support state clean-energy and climate policies.
Education
Educate decision makers and policymakers on the status of market development, clean energy needs, and policy, while highlighting the importance of well-governed markets that prioritize decarbonization.
BPA Advocacy
Advocate for improvements to BPA’s transmission-related processes and outcomes, and represent clean energy interests in BPA’s markets-related activities.
Regional Markets Engagement
Promote increased flexibility, efficiency, and transparency in new and existing markets, while encouraging the move towards a centralized market structure.
Transmission Advocacy
Advocate for meaningful regional and interregional transmission planning and investment that will expand access to renewable energy resources, while improving interconnection processes for new renewable energy and storage projects.
Regulatory & Policy Engagement
Engage in state and federal markets and transmission-related proceedings to ensure fair and reasonable treatment of renewable energy while promoting policies that support environmentally and socially responsible transmission capacity expansion and permitting.
Markets Efforts
RNW leverages our unique position at the nexus of public interest and developer interests to influence regional market design and governance. We lean heavily on existing coalitions, help build new ones, and work collaboratively across stakeholder sectors to drive our advocacy.
Outcomes
- Improving Clean Energy Outcomes: With market implementation efforts underway across the region, RNW and regional partners successfully pushed back against utility tariff changes that would have inadvertently impacted clean energy developers and their ability to efficiently use the region’s transmission system. The pushback ultimately led to better alternatives being developed for consideration.
- Pushing for Good Governance: As a voting member of market design and governance workgroups in Southwest Power Pool’s Markets+, RNW led negotiations for a more equitable attendance policy, aimed at allowing more robust participation by public interest and clean energy organizations. RNW continues to push for better balance across voting sectors as well.
- Representing the Public Interest: RNW took on the formal role of representing the broader Public Interest sector at the California Independent System Operator’s Regional Issues Forum, facilitating cross-sectoral collaboration and shaping discussions around how to maintain robust stakeholder engagement as regional markets evolve.
- Improving Regional Power Reliability: RNW recently co-chaired a review committee for the Western Resource Adequacy Program (WRAP), a regional effort to ensure there’s enough power generation to meet demand. RNW worked with other stakeholders to review and endorse dozens of policy improvements.
Transmission Efforts
As demand grows and our grid faces strain, investments in transmission infrastructure are critical for a reliable, affordable, and clean energy future. RNW is committed to improving processes for planning, permitting, and paying for regional and interregional transmission, while also encouraging more efficient use of existing infrastructure to maintain reliability.
Outcomes
- Shaping Regional Planning: RNW played an active role in helping WestTEC, a regional transmission planning group, develop its 10- and 20-year outlook reports. RNW successfully pushed for more realistic (and lower) cost estimates for battery storage, more accurate long-term cost projections for wind and solar, a more detailed, region-by-region approach to planning future transmission capacity, and a clearer communication strategy for sharing these reports with the public.
- Raising Awareness: RNW has long worked to educate government agencies, policymakers, and other advocates about why regional transmission matters.
- Defending Transmission Lines: RNW helped defend SunZia, a major high-voltage power line connecting the Northwest to the Desert Southwest, against organized opposition. RNW did the same for Boardman-to-Hemingway, a major line connecting northern Oregon to southwestern Idaho.
- Pushing for Transmission Expansion: RNW successfully urged the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a federal agency that manages power transmission in the region, to take part in a regional planning process and commit federal funding to build out new transmission capacity with increased speed.
- Advocating for the Workforce: Thanks to advocacy from RNW and others at the state and federal level, lawmakers advanced language allowing BPA to pay employees outside the standard federal pay scale, helping it better hire and retain workers. This provision remained part of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, which was reintroduced in 2026.
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