SPP April 2026: Why the Western hub saw 3x higher price spreads at launch
SPP April 2026: Why the Western hub saw 3x higher price spreads at launch
SPP West began operating on April 1st 2026, marking SPP’s expansion into the Western Interconnection.
In its first month, Real-Time Top-Bottom four-hour (TB4) price spreads at the new price hub averaged $632/MWh - nearly three times higher than the existing North and South hubs.
This article is the first in a series of monthly SPP benchmarks tracking wholesale market dynamics across SPP.
Read the article to learn why Real-Time price volatility in RTO West was so high in April, and what battery investors can take away from it.
Real-Time prices at the SPP West hub hit both negative and positive extremes
The increased spreads in the West came about as the result of both deeper negative prices and extreme positive prices.
This can be measured by the top-bottom four-hour (TB4) spread, which tracks arbitrage revenues for four-hour duration batteries performing a single cycle a day - the most common configuration in SPP.
Four-hour charge-side prices averaged -$32/MWh at the Western hub, much lower than -$18/MWh of the Wind-driven South.
