Since solar resources affect both the power and transmission business lines, the BPA Solar Task Force includes cross-agency subject matter experts. Solar Task Force members address issues and opportunities facing us and our stakeholders with the introduction of new solar resources. For Power, the addition of solar resources would reduce BPA’s new or existing load obligations which impacts power revenue and load characteristics. Transmission integration of new solar may mean reserving capacity to deliver solar output to the customer’s load or market, or displacing transmission intermittently if the resource serves load behind the customer’s meter with BPA. The cross-agency team will allow us to examine a holistic approach to integrating and interconnecting solar into the grid.
As part of this effort, the Solar Task Force is holding workshops to discuss the current framework and potential changes that could ensure reliability as well as making sure policies fairly address the changes to our system associated with the new solar resources.