Power Planning / Marketing Section

The focus of the Planning/Marketing Section is to assess the future power supply requirements of the Utility for both the short-term and long-term horizons. To meet forecasted customer electric requirements, RPU relies on a diverse portfolio of power supply resources including coal, hydro, nuclear, landfill gas, wind, geothermal, natural gas, and purchase power contracts. Specialized simulation software is utilized to project usage and the cost of RPU’s portfolio of resources for annual budget purposes, as well as long range financial planning and rate study applications.

Power Projects / Contracts Section

The Power Projects/Contracts/Settlements Section is responsible for the management of the Utility’s generation and transmission projects, negotiating and administering the Utility’s power supply-related contracts and tariffs, performing settlement activities related to all wholesale power transactions and project billings, and actively participating in federal regulatory, legal, and electricity market redesign activities affecting RPU’s power supply interests. Basically, an accounting of all buys and sells each hour of the day for all generation and transmission resources. Under contract with the City of Banning, RPU also performs trading and settlement activities related to all of Banning’s wholesale power transactions and power project billings.

Power Scheduling / Operations Section

For RPU to receive the power provided by the resources in its portfolio, the energy output from those resources must be continually reported to, or “scheduled” with, the California Independent System Operator (ISO) and any other affected utilities or counter parties within the jurisdictional boundaries of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council. The Western Electricity Coordinating Council (“WECC”) is regional reliability council designated by the North American Electric Reliability Council. The WECC is responsible for developing and enforcing measures related to electric system operations and the scheduling of power to serve electric customers. The WECC’s jurisdictional boundaries include electric utilities in the eleven western states and portions of southwestern Canada and northwestern Mexico.

Energy Risk Management Section

RPU’s Financial Risk Management Policy (“RMP”) prohibits the Utility from engaging in activities based on speculative risk, which is defined as any risk that is engaged in for its own sake and is not a legitimate business risk, including transactions engaged in solely for the purpose of profiting from market price movements or risks that could be avoided without a substantial economic penalty to the utility. The RMP governs Power Resource’s power trading activities by establishing methods for measuring and communicating RPU’s financial risk exposure and performance.