KMEA and it members operate inside of the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) a Regional Transmission Organization (RTO). As a member of the SPP, KMEA must purchase transmission for its member’s power contracts. KMEA’s primary challenge is to acquire long term transmission rights for its members.
Getting a transmission path from a Generation resource (Source) to the Load (Sink) is a challenging proposition. The SPP Tariff has many processes and KMEA supplies expertise in these different areas that allow its members to acquire transmission service at the lowest cost. KMEA is well versed in using special SPP Business Practices to allow for procurement of transmission quickly. The Tariff also has provisions for requesting waivers of costs when those costs are discriminatory or unjustly being applied to the end user. KMEA has saved its member Cites well over $10,000,000 in transmission upgrade costs in the last 10 years, by requesting waivers.
KMEA has staff that is a voting member on the SPP Regional Tariff Working Group (RTWG). This staff member is kept aware of all changes that are being made to the SPP Tariff. As an active voting member, KMEA has the ability to review and take action on tariff changes that might adversely impact Municipals. The SPP Tariff changes continually and KMEA staff stays up to date on those changes as they are being implemented.
