On March 16, 2026, the Western Interstate Energy Board hosted the final webinar series installment through the Reserve Expenditure Plan, examining the challenges and opportunities presented by new large industrial electricity loads across the Western Interconnection.
For this session in WIEB’s Large Loads webinar series, we explored how different entities are approaching the sequencing and prioritization of large-load requests when near-term system capability is constrained.
- WECC provided a regional view of how and where large loads are appearing in the Western interconnection and where system pressures are emerging,
- A utility perspective examined the practical challenges of serving major new demand while maintaining reliability and affordability, and
- A provincial perspective from British Columbia discussed how policymakers are approaching prioritization decisions when not every request can be accommodated at once.