Coordination schemes and methods for seams optimization in the North American power grid

How can neighboring ISO markets schedule energy interchange more efficiently while retaining separate market clearing, dispatch, and operational responsibility?

Using the CAISO–SPP seam as an example, this chapter examines ways for selecting interchange schedules that improve the economic use of the interface, while recognizing their effects on local dispatch and the transmission constraints around the seam, including parallel flows.

The chapter compares approaches from participant-led scheduling to coordination using shared operational or reduced network information. It explains the practical trade-offs around economic value recovered, the representation of physical constraints, the information exchange, the operational robustness, and whether an interchange schedule can be determined and validated within the available market timeline.

A practical pathway for seam coordination may begin with a seam-specific coordination layer built on a limited but validated representation of how each system can respond to interchange. Where the participating markets do not operate a common platform, a neutral third party could operate that layer under arrangements agreed by the participating ISOs. Detailed dispatch and operational responsibility would remain with the local ISOs. The representation, information exchange and coordination process can then be progressively enriched as operational experience, data interfaces and governance arrangements mature. This is the second chapter in a four-part series. The next chapter examines how European cross-border coordination developed through successive stages.