Brattle Experts Assess SEEM Performance and Identify Opportunities to Increase Customer Savings in New Whitepaper
In a new whitepaper, Brattle experts identify recommendations to increase the customer cost savings provided by the Southeast Energy Exchange Market (SEEM). Drawing on stakeholder interviews, public data, and benchmarking against other US market designs, the authors evaluate SEEM’s performance and provide recommendations to increase customer savings. The paper was prepared for the WRI US Polsky Energy Center.
The authors interviewed stakeholders representing large utilities, municipalities and cooperatives, regulators, independent power producers, and large power customers to understand each group’s experience with SEEM. They supplemented these interviews with a review and analysis of publicly available data.
They find that while SEEM is functioning as designed and delivering incremental benefits, outcomes to date fall materially short of initial expectations. Trading volumes remain a small fraction of projections, and cumulative benefits – averaging $7 million per year – are significantly below the approximately $40 million annually anticipated at the time of market formation. These outcomes largely reflect SEEM’s structure as an enhanced bilateral trading platform without centralized dispatch, designed to facilitate limited real-time bilateral transactions.
To increase customer savings in the region, the authors propose two sets of recommendations:
- Incremental enhancements to SEEM, including improved transparency, expanded trading opportunities, greater automation, and the creation of a more formal role for state regulators in governance.
- Voluntary, low-cost regional market options, such as an Energy Imbalance Market (EIM), a regional resource adequacy program, and a day-ahead market, designed to unlock larger customer cost savings than SEEM while preserving utility autonomy and state authority.
The whitepaper, “Unlocking the Value of SEEM: Identifying Recommendations to Increase Customer Savings Across the Southeast Region,” was authored by Principals John Tsoukalis and Kathleen Spees, and Energy Associate Peter Heller.
