The first webinar will take place on Thursday, July 31 from 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. MST, providing system-level insights and infrastructure perspectives to level set the conversation around what qualifies as a “large” electricity load, why these loads matter, and how they intersect with reliability, affordability, and grid planning for state officials, regulators, and planners across the region.
Please register for the webinar here.
The Western Interstate Energy Board is launching a new webinar series through our Reserve Expenditure Plan to explore the challenges and opportunities presented by new large industrial electricity loads across the Western Interconnection.
As industrial load growth accelerates, policymakers, regulators, and utilities face complex questions around grid readiness, regional implications, and cumulative impacts on existing users. These new large electricity loads–varying in size, timing, and operational flexibility–are reshaping planning assumptions, imposing new questions on system operations, and raising questions around cost allocation and the obligation to serve.
This series will convene expert voices and stakeholders to examine these emerging challenges and identify practical approaches to support effective decision-making.
Speakers:
- Matt Zapotocky, Senior Reliability Assessments Engineer, WECC
- Dr. Clayton Barrows, Group Manager of Grid Operations Planning, Grid Planning and Analysis Center, NREL