PacifiCorp presenters told the Utah Public Service Commission (PSC) at a technical conference that the company plans to join the CAISO day‑ahead Energy Imbalance and Day‑Ahead Market (EDAM) to capture additional regional economic and reliability benefits beyond the current Energy Imbalance Market (EIM).

Mike Wilding, who identified himself as “the vice president of management” at PacifiCorp, told commissioners that EIM has produced roughly $7.4 billion in regional customer benefits since 2014 and that “PacifiCorp’s share of that is just over a billion dollars.” He said EDAM would extend optimization to the day‑ahead timeframe and expects the company to eventually realize incremental customer savings: “We expect about $300,000,000 annually in savings for our customers in EDAM,” Wilding said, adding those savings will grow as the market footprint expands.

Christine Rock, introduced as PacifiCorp’s managing director for market policy and analytics and the staff lead on implementation, said EDAM is voluntary for balancing authority areas and “does not consolidate balancing authorities — this is just a market,” and stressed that the company will retain its balancing and reliability responsibilities.

PacifiCorp said EDAM would add a new imbalance reserve product to address day‑ahead uncertainty, enable a seven‑day trading week for improved planning before extreme weather events, and help integrate more renewable generation by finding more “homes” for intermittent output. The company also highlighted that EDAM uses nodal LMP (local marginal pricing) for hourly day‑ahead awards and that the market will continue five‑minute and 15‑minute real‑time optimizations.

On regulatory milestones, PacifiCorp said FERC issued an order approving tariff changes that will allow participation; PacifiCorp expects to file a compliance filing soon. Staff also discussed recent regional governance changes, noting California’s AB 825 (Pathways bill) as a step toward forming an independent regional organization that will assume market rule authority over time.

PacifiCorp outlined an implementation schedule that includes structured and unstructured testing, a vendor build and certification phase, eight weeks of parallel operations starting in February, and a target to begin EDAM operations in May. The company asked customers and transmission customers to engage in workshops and training, and it plans an implementation workshop on November 20 for in‑depth vendor, settlement and operational training.

PacifiCorp staff and several commissioners and stakeholders asked questions about market footprint, how EDAM compares with an RTO and with the competing Markets+ proposal, expected timing of other Western entities joining EDAM, and whether the day‑ahead market would materially change hedging strategy. PacifiCorp said a prior state study estimated a day‑ahead market captures roughly 70–80% of the benefits of a full RTO but said the company currently has no plan to move to a full RTO.