Wyoming’s largest electric utility announced Thursday that it will join two regional markets intended to boost grid reliability and lower the cost of power. 

According to Rocky Mountain Power and its parent company, PacifiCorp, the initiatives — which improve utilities’ ability to share resources with one another — are an important step toward creating a more modern Western electric grid. 

“The ability to optimize across the market footprint is just a much more efficient way to serve customers than each individual utility can do on their own,” said Scott Bolton, PacifiCorp’s senior vice president of transmission and market development. 

One of the markets was created by California’s transmission authority to help power providers locate the cheapest available resources to ensure supply meets demand a day in advance. 

It’s intended, in part, to help balance the fluctuating output of wind turbines and solar panels by distributing electricity from where it’s generated to where it’s needed. 

Its precursor, essentially a shorter-turnaround version, has saved $500 million for ratepayers in PacifiCorp’s six-state service territory and over $3 billion across the West since 2014, according to the utility. 

The updated market is set to launch in 2024. 

Traditionally, Bolton said, “if I need power, I pick up the phone and I call somebody who’s a supplier in the market, and I buy a block of electricity to serve my customers. And that’s worked for forever, since we’ve had the wholesale electricity market.” 

The day-ahead market increases utilities’ efficiency by pooling all those resources together and letting utilities buy as much electricity as they need — rather than forcing them to overbuy — at the most attractive available price, he said. 

It “strikes the right balance between bringing together the best resources the West has to offer while ensuring local independence for participants,” Gary Hoogeveen, president and CEO of Rocky Mountain Power, said in a statement. 

The other market PacifiCorp is joining is intended to function more like a grid-wide backup generator. 

It’ll link Western utilities from northern Mexico to southern Canada that have committed to fulfilling demand in their own service territory and supporting one another when unexpected events, like extreme weather, cause a utility to fall short. 

“That way, you don’t have different utilities leaning on each other to make sure that they meet their customers’ needs, but everybody shows up with the right amount of power,” Bolton said. “And then having a sharing program in case a power plant goes down or a transmission line goes out.” 

Both initiatives aim to keep prices down while making sure the lights stay on.