A pathway to a West-wide energy market:

Affordability, reliability, and choice

The West has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build the nation’s most advanced energy marketplace — one that keeps electricity affordable, strengthens reliability and resilience, and preserves the independence and priorities of Western states.

The alternative? A bifurcated West, with two or more markets: locking in costly seams, threatening reliability, and diminishing state sovereignty.

The path forward is clear, achievable, and built BY the West, FOR the West.

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Pinnacle Peak, Scottsdale Arizona

The problem

The Western grid functions as a disconnected patchwork

States

Separate grid operators

20– %

Increase in peak demand in the next decade

Some areas curtail excess energy; others struggle to keep the lights on.

And demand is surging, driven by:

Manufacturing reshoring
Data centers and AI computing
Widespread electrification
Extreme weather volatility

Our grid will be tested.

The question is: Will we be ready?

The solution

Meet the ROWE: Built by the West, for the West

Introducing the Regional Organization for Western Energy — the ROWE — a collaborative, voluntary, independent institution designed by Western leaders to connect the region through a shared electricity market platform.

What the ROWE does:

Provides a single market platform for the West
Launches with real-time and day-ahead markets to facilitate increased resource sharing across the region
Will expand over time to offer additional services — ultimately becoming the West’s primary energy marketplace

Benefits of the ROWE:

State authority is protected — participation complements existing state policies
Independent governance with strong public oversight
Open, transparent rulemaking — no single stakeholder holds veto power
Operational excellence that leverages CAISO’s decades of experience
Coordinates low-cost resources to match demand across a wide area for greater efficiency and lower costs
Avoids a bifurcated market, with inefficient, costly seams

This is not a copy of an Eastern approach. It’s being built from the ground up as a uniquely Western institution:

Independent and voluntary.

Flathead Lake, Montana

The Benefits

Why one, unified Western energy market platform

Many utilities exploring alternative markets did so out of concerns about governance — including a reluctance to be tied to California.

With the ROWE establishing an independent governance framework for Western markets, those concerns have been directly resolved.

And the economics are unmistakable: bigger markets deliver greater customer savings. For electricity trade, scale matters — bigger is better.

Vail, Colorado

A unified market unlocks enormous benefits:

Affordability

Making the most of the region’s diverse energy resources to reduce costs for consumers.

Reliability

Creating new pathways for sharing power across state lines, preventing outages and enabling rapid recovery.

Jobs & economic growth

Supporting construction and operations jobs and greater consumer savings across the region.*

*A 2022 analysis found that a unified Western market could save consumers up to $2 billion each year, and create over 650,000 jobs. Read the economic analysis.

Timeline

A thoughtful, phased approach

Building the ROWE is a deliberate, step-by-step process that fosters trust and ensures readiness:

The ROWE will be formally incorporated as a legal entity, establishing the foundation for governance, staffing, and market preparation.

The inaugural Governing Body will be appointed, bringing together diverse voices from across the West to guide the organization’s early policy, market design, and stakeholder engagement.

Tariff language will be submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to transfer governance of the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) and Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM), the regional real-time and day-ahead markets run by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO).

The ROWE will assume full governance authority over the WEIM and EDAM, overseeing both real-time and day-ahead energy trading across the region.

Implementation of new voluntary services will begin.

These are designed to enhance coordination, address seams, and support grid expansion, while remaining state-friendly and flexible.

What’s next

Join the Western energy future

To secure the full benefits of regional coordination — affordability, reliability, and choice — the West must commit to a single, unified market rather than a patchwork of divided systems.

The future grid of the West is being built right now, and decisions made in the next few years will set the region’s trajectory for decades.

This is the moment to engage.

Read the report

Follow the progress of the ROWE

South Mountain, Phoenix Arizona

Resources

Report: Western RTO Region-Wide Study and State-by-State Analyses

Blog: Pathways Bill Paves the Way for a Reliable, Affordable Western Grid

Op-ed: Á la carte energy market will give Western states choice, flexibility and reliability

This is the West at its best

The West has a proud tradition of building big things together

The Union Pacific railroad, the Columbia River Dams, the Pacific transmission intertie – projects that became the backbone of economic development.

To meet today’s challenges, the West needs to channel that same cooperative ambition into a robust energy market platform.

Together, we can build a modern energy system rooted in Western independence and shared prosperity.