BPA dispatcher warns WECC-1 RAS misses south-to-north flows

Bonneville Power Administration dispatcher Chris Sanford is worried about a gap in the Western grid's protection. At a Western Market Seams workshop, he pointed to WECC-1 RAS, a remedial action scheme on the Western Interconnection, and said its logic leaves out south-to-north flows. Utility Dive first reported his comments.

The workshop was built around a broad claim: the Western market has to change as power flows change. Sanford showed what that means in practice. The protection logic written for today's flows may not recognize tomorrow's directions; south-to-north movement, in particular, sits outside it.

That gap matters to underwriters. Interconnection and deliverability studies lean on the remedial action schemes around a proposed line. If a scheme cannot model a flow direction, the capacity and revenue assumptions built on those studies carry a risk that is easy to miss. Extending WECC-1 RAS to cover south-to-north flows is unglamorous, slow, and exactly the kind of grid-hardening work that tends to surface only when something moves the wrong way.

PWD previously covered DOE's withdrawal of federal backing for three interregional transmission corridors, a move that raised the political risk premium for new lines. The same week, data-center buildout pushed states to rethink grid cost allocation. Those two developments form the background to Sanford's concern: federal backing for interregional corridors has evaporated, and new load is forcing states to decide who pays for the grid. Until WECC-1 RAS is extended, every south-to-north flow study will carry a hidden assumption.