How Voluntary Electricity Trading Can Help Efficiency in the Southeast

If Southeastern utilities wish to trade on a voluntary basis, the Energy Imbalance Market, a voluntary market operated by an RTO, is a model with quantified success, and leveraging an existing market platform could be less costly than setting up a new market or exchange.

Factors for success in cost and emissions reduction include a footprint with a diversity of resources and customer demand, as well as energy storage that helps avoid curtailing zero-marginal-cost energy. Centralized market operation can help optimize the system every five minutes, which increases the flexibility of the system and can enhance reliability. The level of market participation and transmission availability are also key.