Enabling Competitive Markets

THE CHALLENGE

A robust and flexible transmission grid drives competition in the wholesale energy market and allows customers to access the lowest-cost generation resources. Imports and exports are critical to maintain efficient and reliable markets during the hour-to-hour, or day-to-day, fluctuations in market dynamics and weather dependent generation that drives inefficiencies and opportunities. The decarbonization of the grid, increasing share of intermittent renewables, increasing extreme weather, and other operating challenges will continue to make import and export capability more critical to maintaining the reliability of the electric grid going forward.  

THE RESULTS

ITC examined the historical import and export levels across its systems and estimated the savings created from a flexible transmission system. For ITCTransmission and METC systems, the annual imports and exports save customers up to $30.3 million and $3.5 million, respectively, for the last 5 years. For ITC Midwest systems, the annual imports and exports save customers up to $3.1 million and $14.3 million, respectively, for the last 3 years.