The campaign to organize Western states under a single electricity market moved closer to reality Friday after an independent advisory group voted to send a governing framework to California regulators for approval.

The vote is a significant step in the creation of an independently-run Western market, which would enable greater sharing of renewable energy across the region. Several studies have said that a more organized Western market that includes California would reduce consumer costs and slash carbon emissions by allowing clean energy to be more easily moved across a multistate territory.

The California Independent System Operator has proposed evolving an existing real-time Western electricity market into one known as the Extended Day Ahead Market, or EDAM, that would allow participants to buy and sell power a day ahead of time and potentially lean more on renewable energy.

Also on Friday, Nevada’s largest utility announced that it will request approval from the state to join EDAM. In the process, it spurned a competing proposal from an Arkansas-based grid operator and paved the way for the California-run proposal to have a broader footprint.

Leah Rubin Shen, managing director at Advanced Energy United, said that NV Energy’s commitment is “particularly beneficial because it will help connect the Northwest and Southwest electric grids.”

“More connectivity between different parts of the region means fewer barriers to transferring electricity, enabling greater reliability during extreme weather events, such as heat waves,” Shen said in a statement.

The moves also come as the grid operator Southwest Power Pool — which has members across more than a dozen central U.S. states — has pitched its own competing Western market. The organization already operates a real-time market for 10 Western utilities but has filed a proposed tariff for a day-ahead version called Markets+ with federal regulators.

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