You likely don't think much about electricity except when it's time to pay the bill... or the power goes out, but electricity is a full time job at the Southwest Power Pool.
"Southwest Power Pool, the easiest way to think about it is it is kind of a three-legged stool that helps operate the transmission system. So its primary functions are transmission planning to make sure that the utilities that are inside the footprint are planning together and it's coordinated," said Liberty VP of Energy Supply Aaron Doll.
The non-profit also oversees transmission operations, ensuring the system is reliable and efficient.
"And the third is they run the wholesale energy market, which is how we determine how much power we buy and what we sell for to serve our customers," said Doll.
The Southwest Power Pool deals with the transmission of electricity in 17 states including Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. That includes more than 150 agencies like Liberty Utilities.
"It actually existed since 1941. And Empire was one of the founding members. That was a consortium of, I believe, 11 utilities that got together to help in the wartime efforts. There was a significant aluminum smelter down in Little Rock and needed quite a bit of power. So 11 utilities bandied together to help supply that power," said Doll.
SPP responsibilities range from dealing with blackouts before they happen to keeping tabs on aging infrastructure to make sure they don't get overloaded and cause unnecessary outages.
"As it relates to the wholesale market , you know, the word that it's a pool kind of makes sense. If you think about it, it is everybody pooling their resources together. And it's SPP running some very complicated, complex computer simulations to say what is the cheapest, most reliable way to dispatch units on a daily basis that breaks down to an hourly basis that breaks down to a five minute basis," said Doll.
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