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SPP and Member Utilities Successfully Achieve Western Expansion Milestone

LCG, April 2, 2026--Southwest Power Pool (SPP) today announced that the expansion of its service territory into the Western Interconnection has been a success. The milestone makes SPP the first regional transmission organization (RTO) with services spanning the Eastern and Western Interconnections. Its member organizations, which cover all or part of 17 states, can now benefit from a more operationally and geographically diverse integrated system.

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Holtec Achieves Milestone towards Restarting Palisades Nuclear Facility and Advances Plans to Build Two SMRs at Palisades Site

LCG, March 31, 2026--Holtec International yesterday announced that it successfully completed a milestone test necessary to return Holtec's Palisades Nuclear Generating Station to service. The 805-MW pressurized water reactor (PWR) is located in Michigan and was shut down by Entergy in May 2022. Holtec acquired the facility in June 2022 and has pursued a path to return the plant to service.

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Industry News

Maker of ISO Software Alerted Companies to "Holes"

LCG, June 6, 2002--A panel chaired by California state Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Santa Ana, heard testimony yesterday that indicated that California market software provider Perot Systems Corp. advised at least one energy company on how best to participate in the state's wholesale energy market.

A presentation made by Texas-based Perot Systems to Reliant Energy Inc., the Houston power generator, and which described particular trading techniques, was submitted as part of Reliant's response to a request for documents by the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Price Manipulation of the Wholesale Energy Market. Perot Systems, which made the software system used by the defunct California Power Exchange and California Independent System Operator, said that the "gaps" it described in the presentation were fixed by the time the system had started running. Perot Systems' founder and chief executive, H. Ross Perot, offered to provide "full access" to relevant information and testify in person before the committee.

In a statement, Perot Systems said that it "provided services to the CalPX, but provided no energy trading services to any California market participant. In fact, Perot Systems actively alerted CalPX and California ISO to defects in the market rules, which had already been adopted by the state of California." Robert McCullough, an energy consultant who testified, said the behavior suggested in the presentation resembles the strategies "Death Star" and "Fat Boy" discussed in Enron memos.

One of the strategies would, the presentation said, allow "a relatively small PX participant" to "purposely congest a small interzonal path," which could lead to higher prices. Dunn said that strategies on "Winning in California Markets" contained in the presentation, if they "turn out to be as bad as (they) potentially could be, this to me is corporate behavior at its despicable worst." The software maker said "it did not reveal or sell any confidential information of any kind." The committee will ask for more documents and plans to interview company representatives.
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