The future grid: One giant electricity market for the West?

Welding the separate, balkanized power grids that cover the Western United States into one massive regional electricity market could cut the costs of California’s climate change goals, according to a state-sponsored report issued Tuesday.

A regional power market could lower by as much as $1.5 billion per year the cost of getting 50 percent of the state’s electricity from renewable sources, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the West, according to the report.

The study, issued Tuesday by the organization that runs California’s grid, concludes that a regional market would cut costs by allowing solar power plants, wind farms and plants burning fossil fuels to sell their excess electricity more easily across state lines.

“California can meet that 50-percent goal while building fewer renewable projects, because you can get more out of every project you build,” said Keith Casey, vice president of market and infrastructure development at the California Independent System Operator, which released the report.

The Sierra Club, for example, argues that creating a regional electricity market could keep some aging coal plants alive — pushing up greenhouse gas emissions rather than cutting them.

PacifiCorp owns a fleet of coal-fired power plants, some of which require expensive upgrades to stay open, said Travis Ritchie, staff attorney with the Sierra Club.

Should too many older coal plants across the West stay open, the cut in greenhouse gas emissions predicted by Tuesday’s report would vanish, Ritchie said.