The Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority (OMPA) and the Public Utilities Board (PUB) of the City of Brownsville, TX, have announced their intent to form a municipal power pool spanning four states. OMPA is a full and partial requirements wholesale supplier to 35 municipal electric systems in Oklahoma. PUB owns coal- and gas-fired generation plants. The two entities offer a combined supply resource of about 800 megawatts, but rely on the transmission system of Central and South West (CSW).
"OMPA and PUB must compete against CSW, and in order to do that we must maximize our operating efficiencies," says Roland Dawson, OMPA general manager. Dawson envisions the power pool capturing benefits in the same way as the CSW power pool, which dispatches CSW-owned generation located in both the Southwest Power Pool and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). The key to success is comparable access to the CSW transmission system, which is not yet available to nonaffiliates.
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