Electric Power Engineers and SPP Collaborate on First Release of FAST to Advance Transmission Planning at Scale

AUSTIN, Texas and LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas, October 21, 2026 — Electric Power Engineers (EPE) and SPP announced their collaboration on the first release of EPE’s Flexible Automation Simulation Toolset (FAST) for transmission studies.

Purpose-built by industry experts, FAST combines advanced automation with AI to help system operators and utilities manage the increasing volume and complexity of planning, economic, interconnection and operational studies. The initial release includes elements tailored to SPP’s processes and high-volume study requirements as the regional transmission organization prepares for unprecedented energy demand, an evolving resource mix, increased compliance requirements, and new approaches to regional grid planning.

“As SPP studies and plans the infrastructure investments needed to maintain reliability in an ever-evolving energy landscape, we are facing increasing engineering challenges,” said SPP Vice President of Engineering Casey Cathey. “FAST is being shaped around our processes so our teams can evaluate complex variables across more scenarios, improve the quality and efficiency of our studies and make critical planning decisions with greater speed and confidence. This collaboration will build upon our leadership in the industry and strengthen our ability to prepare the transmission system for the significant growth ahead.”

SPP is undertaking a significant modernization of its transmission-planning processes through initiatives including its Consolidated Planning Process (CPP), which integrates generator interconnection and long-term transmission planning into a coordinated, forward-looking framework. SPP is also advancing new pathways for high-impact large loads (HILL). These initiatives will address rapidly growing demand from large commercial and industrial facilities while maintaining rigorous reliability standards.

The scale, speed, and technical complexity of this transformation require new capabilities. Stability analysis is highly specialized and computationally complex, often involving large volumes of data, numerous operating conditions, and detailed assessment of dynamic system performance. FAST is designed to help break down that complexity by organizing, automating, and accelerating critical elements of the study process.

EPE’s FAST platform will accelerate stability planning cycles, scale studies to growing interconnection demand, and help engineering teams spend less time preparing cases and more time analyzing results and making capital decisions.

“EPE brings together deep power-systems domain expertise, and industry leading technology solution, allowing us to build an AI-ready holistic platform to address the real engineering challenges utilities and system operators face,” said Tamer Rousan, Executive Vice President of Utilities at EPE. “FAST translates decades of EPE consulting acumen into a platform built by engineers for engineers. It enables organizations to model increasingly complex systems, study more scenarios and optimize mitigations and investments for reliability, resilience and cost-effectiveness faster, more accurately and at scale.”

Together, EPE and SPP are demonstrating how power-systems engineering expertise, advanced automation and AI-enabled technology can be combined to help the industry plan a more reliable, resilient, affordable and flexible grid.

About SPP

SPP is a regional transmission organization and nonprofit corporation mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to ensure reliable supplies of power, adequate transmission infrastructure and competitive wholesale electricity prices on behalf of its members. SPP serves members in all or part of 17 states and provides energy services to customers in 23 states and provinces.

SPP Media Relations: media@spp.org

About Electric Power Engineers

Electric Power Engineers (EPE) is a global advisory and engineering firm advancing grid reliability, resilience, flexibility, and affordability. EPE provides full-spectrum consulting, grid modeling, and innovative software solutions to support new generation interconnection (including renewables integration), energy storage, transmission and distribution planning, and digital transformation. Trusted by utilities, developers, data center operators, regulatory agencies, and enterprise clients, EPE helps solve complex power system challenges to build the grid of the future. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with offices in Canada, Panama, and Lebanon, EPE operates across North America, Latin America, the Middle East, and North Africa. Learn more at www.epeconsulting.com.

Contact: Ingrid Nicar, EPE, inicar@epeconsulting.com