General

Preserving reliable, resilient power

Faced with growing demand for power and the need to prepare for extreme weather, OPPD and other utilities are taking some important steps to preserve a resilient and reliable power supply.

The Southwest Power Pool (SPP) recently approved increases to the planning reserve margins that member utilities, including OPPD, must maintain in their daily operations.

Planning reserve margins represent the amount of power utilities must have available beyond peak projected demand to guard against unplanned situations or stresses on the regional power grid.

For the first time, the new reserve-margin requirements will vary by season. OPPD and other utilities in the SPP will need to have enough generating capacity to serve their peak consumption, plus an additional 36% planning reserve margin in winter and 16% margin in the summer. The new requirements go into effect starting in summer 2026.

The change will help OPPD and other utilities prepare for situations when certain types of generation aren’t available during crucial moments, such as major cold fronts or heat waves.

OPPD has been preparing for the increased requirements since 2019. That’s when the utility launched the Power with Purpose initiative to boost its generation capabilities to maintain reliability and resiliency and serve customers’ growing needs.

“We’ve been on the path to have the resources that we need for quite some time,” said Colton Kennedy, OPPD’s director of Energy Portfolio Planning and the chair of SPP’s supply adequacy working group. “We knew there were going to be increased requirements.”

A regional challenge

OPPD is a member of the SPP, a not-for-profit organization mandated by the federal government to ensure reliable power supplies, adequate transmission infrastructure and competitive wholesale energy prices on behalf of its members in 14 states. The SPP’s footprint covers a huge swath of the central United States, from Texas to Montana.

The new requirements come as the SPP warns about unprecedented new demand for electricity and extreme weather events that can stress the regional grid.

In a report released in July, the SPP foreshadowed a “once-in-a-generation” challenge to ensure adequate power in the region. The report highlighted the need for more transmission to connect generators to the grid, increase security and send lower-cost energy to consumers.

“While SPP always focuses on affordability, we need continued investment to add the generating and transmission facilities needed to mitigate risks and keep the lights on,” said SPP Chief Executive Officer Barbara Sugg.

Sugg called for “a concerted, collective effort” to ensure reliable, long-term power.

Planning for the future

OPPD plans to add 2.5 gigawatts of new generation over the next decade, nearly doubling its nameplate capacity.

The utility expects to see 100 megawatts of electrical load growth each year for the remainder of the decade. The development of new homes, businesses and other users is spurring that growth. Just a few years ago, OPPD’s load growth was a much more modest 4 megawatts per year.

This year alone, OPPD has joined forces with Google on a solar and battery energy project, signed agreements with wind-energy providers, and prepared to launch two new natural gas facilities. Those natural gas plants – Turtle Creek Station and Standing Bear Lake Station – are set to go online this year.

OPPD also added 81 megawatts of capacity to its portfolio with Platteview Solar, a project developed and owned by the global energy company AES. Platteview Solar is OPPD’s first utility-scale solar project and the largest such project to date in Nebraska.

Kennedy said SPP is likely to expand the required planning reserve margins even more, and is setting new policy now to ensure reliability, with a winter margin as high as 38% and a summer margin of 17% starting in 2029. Adding new generation, as OPPD is doing, will help expand the margins. OPPD is also working to put generation sources closer to end-users so the electricity doesn’t have to travel as far on transmission lines, which will help minimize congestion, he said.

OPPD is well-positioned compared to many other utilities and will continue adding generation to meet the growing need, he said.

Even so, the utility has work to do. There are many factors to consider, and a diversity of sources helps protect OPPD’s generation fleet.

Why diversify?

Every generation source has tradeoffs.

Coal power is steady and consistent but requires a reliable water supply. That water supply can dwindle when river levels drop or when winter weather causes ice jams upstream. Many coal plants have aged and utilities plan to retire them, leaving less of an incentive to upgrade parts.

“You’re not going to put new tires on a vehicle you plan to sell unless you absolutely need to,” Kennedy said.

Natural gas generation is reliable, but regional shortages can leave utilities without the necessary fuel to supply power to everyone. In addition, mechanical issues can take gas plants offline.

Wind and solar energy are variable, but can be predictable. These offset the need for fuels, which can help when fuel sources are scarce. The abundance of wind in Nebraska makes wind power less of a challenge than in other states.

The biggest factor driving the changes is the decreasing reserve throughout SPP’s footprint as utilities retire more generation, Kennedy said. At the same time, extreme weather events illustrate the need for greater margins.

OPPD has invested in its existing fleet as well to weatherize its generation sources, including coal and natural gas facilities, against extreme temperatures.