California: Governor Newsom celebrates launch of western regional energy market, designed to deliver lower energy costs and strengthen electric grid

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May 1, 2026

Governor Newsom celebrates launch of western regional energy market, designed to deliver lower energy costs and strengthen electric grid

Day-ahead market unlocks lower-cost energy, improves reliability, and builds on a proven Western energy market model

What you need to know: The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) launched the Extended Day-Ahead Market, a new regional energy market designed to reduce customer costs, strengthen grid reliability, and deliver billions in economic benefits across the West. The launch builds on bipartisan legislation signed by Governor Gavin Newsom (AB 825) in 2025, which creates a path toward more independent regional energy market governance and expands coordination across western states to improve reliability and reduce costs.

SACRAMENTO – Governor Newsom today celebrated the launch of the Extended Day-Ahead Market (EDAM), a historic expansion of western regional energy markets that builds on the proven success of the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) to lower customer costs and boost reliability of the western grid. The launch of EDAM marks the culmination of years of bipartisan work, broad coalition-building, and meaningful partnerships to deliver an energy market built by and for the West.

It took years of hard work to get here, and today we're making it real. This is what an affordable energy future looks like: turning hard-won planning and partnership into lower costs and a more reliable grid for California and our neighbors across the West. By coming together around a smarter, more cost-effective energy market, we're laying a foundation that will deliver billions in economic benefits for decades to come.

Governor Gavin Newsom

What EDAM does and why it's a big deal

Every day, energy market participants across the West — utilities, municipal power providers, federal agencies, and grid operators — have to figure out how much electricity they'll need tomorrow and where they'll get it.

EDAM creates a shared marketplace where market participants across the West can coordinate and optimize their resources the day before power is needed, find the lowest-cost electricity — whether it's solar in Nevada, wind in Wyoming, or hydroelectric in the Pacific Northwest — and help move it where it's needed, depending on grid conditions and constraints.

There's already strong evidence that this approach works.

CAISO has operated the Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM) since 2014 — a real-time energy market that now includes 22 balancing authorities across 11 western states, representing 80 percent of electricity demand in the West. In the first quarter of 2026, the WEIM delivered $382 million in economic benefits to participants, with $8.62 billion in cumulative savings since its 2014 launch. The WEIM has also helped participants avoid more than 1.15 million metric tons of CO2 emissions since launch — roughly equal to taking 236,276 passenger cars off the road for a year.

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EDAM, also operated by CAISO, builds on that success by extending this coordination into the day-ahead timeframe — where most electricity is bought, sold, and scheduled — unlocking an even larger opportunity for cost savings and reliability across the West.

The launch builds on bipartisan legislation signed by Governor Gavin Newsom (AB 825) in 2025, which creates a path toward more independent regional energy market governance and expands coordination across western states to improve reliability and reduce costs.

California's clean energy leadership

Since the beginning of the Newsom administration, California has added nearly 17,000 megawatts (MW) of battery storage to our energy system, a 2,100% increase — and over 30,000 megawatts of new resources that's redefining grid reliability and advancing the state's clean energy transition.

In 2023, California was powered by two-thirds clean energy, making it the largest economy in the world to achieve this level. The state ran on 100% clean electricity for part of the day almost every day last year.  California now has 33% of the storage capacity estimated to be needed by 2045 to reach 100% clean electricity. The Golden State is showing the world it is a clean energy powerhouse.

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